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Twitter integrated into mainstream media site
2008-05-22 01:15:00
On Sunday, I discussed how Twitter feeds (or variations) will be aggregated into channels by mainstream media. Yesterday's release that Summize, a Twitter search engine has partnered with Huffington Post to display Twitters by tagged subject is an indication to this effect. Here's how this works... each article in the Huffington Post has tags.Clicking on the tag brings up more articles on the subject, including specific Twitter feeds related to the tag.Unfortunately, Twitters related to real estate don't seem relevant, principally because the tag is too generic. This is a good try to attribute relevancy to Twitter feeds, but will work better with more detailed "Long Tail" tags, such as "Sacramento foreclosures". Here's an idea Huffington Post might consider for general tags to make them relevant - create individual Twitter feeds, such as @huffpo_obama that Twitter links to their Obama articles. Then, followers to @huffpo_obama (and there would be many) can Twitter comment about ...
More About: Media , Site , Integrated , Mainstream Media

VoiceCloud - No More Checking Voicemail
2008-05-19 23:55:00
Here's a list of pet peeves I don't want to do on my cellphone. All have to do with voicemail: 1) Check voicemail messages 2) Listen to voicemail messages 3) Have to remember to call someone back after receiving a VM (my hit rate is .500) 4) Have to check all my saved VM to make sure I didn't forget to call back someone 5) See 4 above... listening through all 10 saved VMs 6) Not having unlimited saved VMs I've been getting rave feedback from VoiceCloud, a voice-to-text tool that transcribes voicemails and sends them to your email address. Check out Roberta Murphy's review.  Here's an example: On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 10:47 AM, Tom wrote: I like your voice cloud  Pat.   Tom Patrick Kitano to Tom Hey Tom, we like the Lakers, particularly vs. Utah... On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 1:04 AM, <noreply@voicecloud.com> wrote: Hey Patrick, I'm ready to get home and watch the lakers play, I hope they could win just because ...
More About: Voicemail

Twitter Channels
2008-05-18 13:32:00
Cheryl Johnson expressed a common complaint about Twitter ... the noise:I used to enjoy twitter conversations immensely.  I backed off as it seemed more and more people were just "broadcasting" instead of "conversing".  Kind of like being in a room with 55 radios all turned on each to a different station.  :-0I think the trick for me would be to go back in and "unfollow" a whole bunch of people to get back to a more managable conversational level.Although I suggested "watching" the noise passively to get the full effect of the real estate conversation happening on Twitter, I also agree that it can be exhausting or time wasting tracking irrelevant conversations.TWITTER WILL EVOLVE INTO CHANNELS Like Cheryl's 55 radio station analogy, Twitter will eventually evolve into channels - technology, finance, real estate, sports - here are some scenarios: Finance channels will cover breaking trader news faster than the news wires. Twitterers broadcast China's Chengdu earthq...
More About: Channels

Why mainstream media should be developing online real estate magazines
2008-05-14 01:00:00
A few days ago, I noted that the new and most relevant online real estate magazines are best exemplified by blog properties like Agent Genius or Bloodhound. Mainstream media should be playing this card - building their own local real estate magazines - because they already have the consumer traffic base and can leverage their brand names to capture real estate readers.Newspaper publishers Screenwerk cites the local online newspapers' trend to "site diversification" in order to capture more relevant local traffic. Greg Sterling's main point: Newspaper sites cannot accomodate all the various local uses cases and newspapers need to build or buy (if they can) other sites that will. The Gannett Mom sites (e.g., IndyMoms) are a great example of the strategy. Make the newspaper sites as usable as possible but build other sites (demographically focused, vertical, etc.) for content and ad distribution. Real estate fits this paradigm. Newspaper sites or companies like Planet Discover...
More About: Media , Estate , Real Estate , Magazines , Online

REO / Foreclosure Online Resources
2008-05-13 10:56:00
Six months ago, I wondered why there were very few bloggers focusing on the REO/foreclosure markets. Last quarter, even in markets like Minneapolis not usually associated with the CA/AZ/FL foreclosure debacle, foreclosures and short sales accounted for 27% of home sales. Since the beginning of the year, a lot of resources have popped up -  International Listings compiled a comprehensive foreclosure investors' online resource guide of 100 sites.
More About: Resources , Real Estate Investment , Foreclosure , Online , Mortgages

The Real Online Real Estate Magazines
2008-05-11 10:55:00
I recently noticed Agent Genius's (new?) tagline " a National Real Estate Magazine". It's the perfect metaphor for how blogging is converging into mainstream media  under the guise of a "magazine" format. Magazine 2.0, using Wordpress, drives down the cost of an online magazine to insignificance, and positions Agent Genius as a real estate media property (in the old world, Oprah spent $20 million to launch her national magazine...)Note the intuitive difference between online newspaper and magazine. Inman News, Realty Times and RISMedia have always been positioned as news sources or networks with a mission to provide journalist quality and factual reporting (umm... some do this better than others). Magazines , on the other hand, aggregate articles and provide perspectives and subjective interpretations, making their online equivalent ideal for blogger authors. Both online formats attract readers in the same way people read both the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine.Gre...
More About: Real Estate , Online

Adjusting the credit score goalpost in an upside down market
2008-05-09 03:17:00
Forbes.com's Maurna Desmond's May 8 article calls Alt-A loans "subprime in sheep's clothing". In short, crumbling housing prices will push more mortgages into default simply because even relatively affluent borrowers may not stick around once equity turns negative. The "walkaway" factor has changed the reliability of credit scoring. The FICO score has been an accurate indicator for default risk. Now, the more important default indicator may be the personal debt-to-value ratio (that FICO scores do partially factor in), which requires a marked-to-market home valuation (and I don't think the credit bureaus use Zillow). Thus, the credit scoring system has loopholes... for example, a borrower with negative equity can accumulate credit card lines in order to continue to pay their bills on time and support their FICO scores, up until the day of reckoning when either their debt resources run out, or they just walkaway. I don't think the major credit bureaus can change their existing fo...
More About: Credit , Market , Score , Upside

Global cooperation to support the dollar
2008-05-08 11:56:00
The media has been sighing with relief that the greatest depression since the 1930's doesn't seem likely. However, global inflation remains an elephant in the room threat (Goldman Sachs analyst predicts $200 oil by year end ), and it's encouraging to see the world banks working in concert to ensure a stronger dollar to keep inflation at bay:Europe and US unite on stronger dollar (FT) All about the dollar - what the currency strategists think (despite the fact that today, ECB's Trichet isn't signaling lower interest rates on Europe's side in order to combat inflation, causing a dollar dip) But we're certainly not out of the dark forest yet, none other than George Soros claims we're in a bear market rally that will tip back into despair: The Wall Street Journal writes that Soros recently said ?The markets are breathing a sigh of relief but the fallout in the real economy is only now beginning.? Soros does not even bother to say that there is any light at the end of the tun...
More About: Economy , Cooperation , Dollar , Global , Support

Mortgages take the stage on real estate sites
2008-05-07 15:45:00
Homethinking, the leading real estate agent review site, adds an application for accessing lender data compiled within the Federal Reserve's Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) database for the year 2006. Although the data is old, it reveals geographic distribution of loan amounts, subprime usage and specific lender activity by county.The implication of the data is to understand the counties where subprime and its associated rate resets will be significant. Homethinking's Niki Scevak and Inman News' Matt Carter describe the data and impact in more detail. Up to now, real estate listings sites have relegated their mortgage offerings to affiliate mortgage applications that have become recognized by consumers as (annoying) lead generation tools. With mortgages so hard to get lately, real estate sites like Zillow look to offer more innovative products like their mortgage match up service to cater to the consumer. Another valuation modeling site Cyberhomes will eventually leverage the...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Sites , Mortgages , Real

193 unit San Francisco complex sold at $730/sqft.
2008-05-06 01:43:00
SocketSite, San Francisco 's property evaluation blog, reports on the $115 million record sale price for a new 193-unit luxury apartment complex in the new Mission Bay, valuing the units at $730/sq.ft. More interesting is the comment stream of readers trying to justify why the purchase was made - examples: What many of you seem to overlook is that UDR is a publicly-traded, investment grade REIT. Check their public filings - they recently borrowed $200MM at LIBOR+85. That's 3.6%. If that's the cost of capital on this project, it may well pencil out of the box.(According to this GlobeSt article, the cap rate is in the mid-4% range)If the developer can only sell those units individually for $600/sqft, why would they offer $730/sqft? They understand that rents are going to rise around here for the foreseeable future. Note that the sellers had planned for a 9-month lease-up but they were able to get all 193 units into contract in just 4 months. The purchase is puzzling conside...
More About: San Francisco Bay Area , Complex , Sold

Explaining the massive derivatives market and why the Bear Stearns bailout
2008-05-04 17:36:00
With the markets looking a little more rosier these days, we can only remind ourselves of the ghost of Bear Stearns ' bail out only 48 days ago. It's still being interpreted. On Saturday, Warren Buffett talked about the bailout, the problems with the derivatives market, and the declining risk of a financial meltdown, and mentioned an incredible statistic that I thought was a typo: If Bear had failed, one or two other investment banks would probably have collapsed within a few days, he said, adding that Bear had roughly $14.5 trillion of derivative contracts outstanding the day after it was bailed out. "The parties that had those contracts would have had to establish the damages that they could claim against that estate very quickly," he said. "Imagine the damage of everyone trying to unwind those contracts," Buffett said. "That would have been a spectacle of unprecedented proportions. It would have resulted in another one or two investment banks going down in a few days." ...
More About: Economy , Market , Derivatives

The economy - false or real optimism?
2008-05-03 13:37:00
Two financial luminaries' views on the credit crisis:Buffett says credit crisis ebbs for Wall Street firms James Dimon, JP Morgan, says no near end to financial crisis And on the economy: From Forbes Rich Karlgaard (admittedly their tech blogger) Only a month ago, such sages as George Soros and Alan Greenspan were shouting from bullhorns that the 2008 global financial mess was the worst since World War II. Only a month ago, the only argument among nearly all journalists, pundits and leftwing politicians was whether the U.S. economy would stop at a recession or tumble all the way down the tubes to a 1930s-style depression. Very few challenged the recession presumption. Now, if your definition of a recession is the traditional one of two consecutive quarters of negative growth, then those very few contrarians are correct. There is no possibility now--zero, nada, zip--that the U.S. will suffer two consecutive quarters of negative growth in 2008. Points from the gloo...
More About: Economy , Real , Optimism

Real estate search technology is overrated
2008-05-02 09:04:00
The real estate industry is the search technologists' siren's song.  They find a better way to search and look for applications to industry verticals. They see real estate, with its complex data parameters and believe that any iteration that makes search a little bit easier will become the consumer Holy Grail. In addition, they perceive the industry as a cash cow with agents and lenders, etc. making commissions of 4 to 5 digit fees, and believe it's more lucrative to capture a small % of these huge fees than to apply search to lower fee capture products like dating or retail.Of course, the reality is simplifying search doesn't matter to the consumer. They want data credibility...  consumers eventually figure out that they need to visit various sites to cobble together what they perceive as comprehensive listings data (remember, if you're a real estate professional who read blogs, you know MLS services, Trulia and Zillow paint partial pictures, but the consumer doesn'...
More About: Technology , Estate , Real Estate , Search , Real

HomeGain blog network
2008-04-30 19:09:00
HomeGain continues to inch closer to Web 2.0 with its new blog network for its real estate clients. And with it, HomeGain can now call itself the one stop shop Lead Generation portal... with a business model. In order to blog on HomeGain, an agent registers for the Source4Sellers product which provides them sponsored visibility to consumer traffic by zip code. I registered and noted the pricing for San Francisco zip codes 94109 (lower Pacific Heights) and 94123 (tony Pacific Heights were $99.95 and $159.95 per month, respectively. (Good pricing transparency). The concept behind Source4Sellers and the blog network is to show HomeGain clients that blogging supplements the lead generation of zip code sponsorship. It's an enticing product for a newbie blogging agent who wants to be assured of some sort of active lead generation via the sponsorship while concurrently "trying out" blogging. I applaud GM Louis' strategy to pull in new customers with an evolving smorgasboard of lead gener...
More About: Blogging , Network , Blog

Grand Theft Auto IV - film maker meets gamer
2008-04-29 12:39:00
I love films, I was in the business for a few years... Martin Scorcese is one of my favorite directors... Like most film buffs, I've been waiting decades for an immersive game-as-movie experience. The common thread to all these blockbuster reviews for Grand Theft Auto IV - they all invoke the magical name Scorcese when comparing the game experience:Much more than a game, Grand Theft Auto IV is a five-star interactive drama GameSpy review Rockstar's most important game ever Four minute gameplay chase video - comment: is this a Scorcese game?
More About: Technology , Film , Gamer , Maker

Google Page Rank update
2008-04-29 00:42:00
Some time this Monday evening Google updated its page ranks. None of the tech-dominated Twittersphere I follow mentioned it. A Technorati search for "page rank" at 10:30pdt, only Dave Smith (h/t) and Greg Swann noticed it, no one else, even the SEO guys. It was a non-event, another indication of the SEO community's lack of interest in what once was an awaited online event.
More About: Technology , Events , Page Rank , Page

How banks can charge higher loan rates despite Fed rate cuts
2008-04-28 03:08:00
Here is the simplistic reasoning why banks are charging higher loan rates, despite Fed rate cuts (explained well by Jonathan Miller / Matrix) Investors of any kind of mortgage backed securities have vanished. Therefore, banks, as lenders, can no longer offload their mortgages to investors like Bear Stearns or Lehman Bros. Now banks are forced to hold the loans they make. This is why banks are recapitalizing, and still need $100 billion more (according to UBS analyst) to offset the losses from write-downs on bad loans, so they can make more loans. Since banks are assuming risk for the loans they make, they charge higher rates for these loans. Greater risk, greater return (in business school, this is called CAPM) Many lenders have disappeared, leaving little competition. Since banks don't have the capital to make loans (see #4 above), they make loans only to their best credit worthy customers With loans hard to get (#6 & #7), banks can now charge higher rates for bigger margin...
More About: Economy , Banks , Loan , Charge , Mortgages

Markets stabilizing? Housing is last
2008-04-27 14:49:00
Following up on last Thursday's development re: European Central Bank moves supporting the US dollar, Barrons has also chimed in on the end of the dollar's slide.This spring's dollar slide, coincident with global inflation of food and oil prices (very few predicted the $120/barrel Brent crude) impacted consumer sentiment as much as the other crises: credit crunch, recession, etc.And with the consumer feeling poorer, the housing markets certainly aren't going anywhere. In this past week, media voices are calling a bottom to some of these crises. Stock markets are stabilizing pending any further evidence of a recession next week. Bond prices fall as investors sense credit crisis easing. The housing markets will only stabilize when the consumer feels comfortable; it's the market that is positioned last in line as other markets begin to recover.
More About: Economy , Markets , Housing

Chat client proliferation
2008-04-26 00:38:00
Along with text messaging, chat has become a ubiquitous Web 2.0 application. I list the various ways you can reach me: Application Chat client Who I chat with Email GmailGtalk Gmail users, fave 5VOIP Skype Skype chat Skype users, most used chat clientWeb/blog Chat box Gtalk (Google created a  smaller, more elegant Meebo /Plugoo widget)Usually people I don't knowSocial network Facebook Facebook chatFacebook network, not used. In fact, I think it's the chat client that will break the chat camel's backMicro-bloggingTwitterTwitter DM (direct msg)The usual Twitter suspects everybody knows What's surprising is the contacts beeping me via chat is as natural as taking/not taking a phone call. Chat is still asynchronous communication that works flexibly into busy schedules.
More About: Proliferation , Client

ECB cooperation to maintain dollar's strength
2008-04-24 13:35:00
The European Central Bank and its president Jean-Claude Trichet have been posturing with the mission to fight inflation by maintaining and not dropping ECB interest rates relative to the recent sharp drops by the Fed. It has contributed to a weakening dollar. Food price and oil price inflation, exacerbated by the weak dollar, have become high profile topics that make the ECB stance look unkind. Once the dollar's slide reached $160 per euro, the ECB shifted posture today: "We're concerned about the possible implications for financial and macroeconomic stability," Trichet told reporters, according to Dow Jones Newswires. He added that it's "very important" that U.S. authorities have said a strong dollar is in the country's own interest.The remarks came after the euro hit a record high against the dollar Tuesday of $1.6020. "Is it a coincidence that the change in tone came after the euro breached $1.60, and that so many ECB members are taking a less hawkish tone? W...
More About: Economy , Cooperation

April housing market anecdotes
2008-04-24 01:06:00
The 90/10 rule seems  to be in play this April , as in 10% of Realtors are managing 90% of the transactions. Our California title insurance friends are telling me that the number of transactions remain depressed this month, but our friends, many in the 90% group, are seeing the spring uptick just because they are in that 90% group. Here are some anecdotes about the spring buying season: Teresa Boardman says StPaul feels like 2005 San Francisco bidding wars video from Market watchBusiness Week profiles Altos Research data in assessing spring buying opportunities in 15 metro markets Some day, NAR will finally forecast the bottom right... the NAR spin chart from NJ RE Report h/t Matrix / Big Picture. Click to Matrix for a chronological list of NAR's economist quotes.
More About: Housing , Anecdotes

ChaseNation, a social network built on Ning
2008-04-22 01:54:00
I didn't exactly "get" Ning when I first experimented with it a year ago because I didn't see how scattered individuals could collectively develop Web 2.0 social networks. I watched others invite me to their Ning networks and noticed they were floundering in developing a network of essentially unrelated individuals. So my first impression was Ning allowed Facebook-like groups to create their own networks outside Facebook, but I questioned who in the group would actually set up the network on Ning and manage it when so many other social networks were vying for attention. I was reintroduced to Ning recently by a Fast Company article that explains Ning's successful exponential growth with the fact that each social network Ning creates attracts multiple members joining them: The company estimates that, at this rate, by New Year's Eve 2010 it will host some 4 million social networks, with tens of millions of members, serving up billions of page views daily. It took a visual exam...
More About: Social , Network , Social Network

Marketing message for buyer's agents
2008-04-21 19:46:00
SF Chronicle has an interesting twist on buyer's agents - for cars. I reproduce the article in its entirety because I thought the content was informative, and the messaging itself quite persuasive for this company's services. Some people like to haggle with car salesmen. Linda Lee Goldberg of San Rafael is one. She likes it so much you can hire her to do your haggling for you, at CarQ.com. "I went to work in car dealerships so I could learn sales management and financing. After I stepped out of the industry, that very day I became a buyer's agent and created a whole new concept in the way people could buy cars. A client contacts CarQ and creates the ideal profile for the vehicle they want. There is a process so we can obtain pricing information. That information is translated into a written preliminary pricing report. The client will then receive this report, which includes all the standard equipment, dealer costs and retail pricing on all the options, and a review of t...
More About: Marketing , Agents , Message

Simple poll about real estate sites
2008-04-17 23:46:00
Yes, it's unscientific, but possibly interesting...
More About: Technology , Estate , Real Estate , Sites , Poll

Repositioning the HomeGain image
2008-04-17 18:27:00
Before Web 2.0 took off less than two years ago, the only online products for real estate agents were lead generation plays - premium ad placement models like Realtor.com and lead buys from lead gen sources. Lead generation companies generally have tarnished reputations with real estate agents because the leads they sell have already been blanket labeled as "unworkable". From a marketing perspective, one needs to understand the psychological reasons why purchased leads have been damned: Lead generation is a tough product to sell. Many lead gen companies (not Homegain according to Louis) sold product under 6-12 month contract to lock in clients. The sales process generally uses a telemarketing force, which hints to a poorer sales experience. The lock in period irritates agents as ruthless. Purchased leads require cold calling to unsuspecting potential customers. It's not a task to look forward to... it's the last thing I'd want to do. Purchased leads' close rates are low (...
More About: Blogging , Image

A blogger broke Obama's "bitter voters" quote
2008-04-17 01:12:00
Who broke Barack Obama's now famous 'bitter voters clinging to guns and religion...' quote he made in San Francisco on March 11? 61-year old blogger Mayhill Fowler, who voluntarily blogs for the Huffington Post. The 61-year-old blogger tore the curtain from the front window of a longtime political refuge - the high-end fundraiser - and the ensuing tumult from her story about the closed-to-the-press event shows how coverage of campaigns continues to be rewritten in the digital age. "What Fowler did was commit an act of journalism," said Marc Cooper, her editor at the Huffington Post and a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California. She did it with a recorder. Blogging /news reporting/journalism morph into the massive media reporting system and we still only see a tiny glmmer of its potential.
More About: Blogger , Bitter , Voters , Quote

Strategic planning for real estate startups
2008-04-16 01:38:00
Nikolai Kolding at the new BH&G Real Estate blog inspired me to write more about the strategic planning process. Like Nicolai, I've always been hooked on how businesses work and why things happen, the essence of corporate strategy. Simply put, there are two types of strategic planning - corporate planning and startup planning. Nicolai describes the former by introducing the "scenario planning" methodology used by conglomerate Royal Dutch Shell: Shell uses scenarios to explore the future. Our scenarios are not mechanical forecasts.  They recognise that people hold beliefs and make choices that can lead down different paths.  They reveal different possible futures that are plausible and challenging. Our latest energy scenarios look at the world in the next half century, linking the uncertainties we hold about the future to the decisions we must make today. The next half century is long term planning (frankly, I think it is too long). This is the province of management...
More About: Real Estate , Planning , Strategic Planning

Poll: 60% of Americans won't buy homes in next two years, but 60% believe n
2008-04-14 11:16:00
60% of Americans won't buy homes in next two years, but 60% believe now is the time to buy. This contrary statistic simply states that Americans think the bottom is near, but they're certainly not willing to put their money where their mouth is. It indicates complete uncertainty in our economy.
More About: Economy , Poll , Homes , Years

The Alternative to Hard Selling
2008-04-14 10:58:00
On Real Estate Radio USA Friday, we discussed the hard sell ethos of the real estate professional. Like all sales people, everybody is generally trained to sell the same way. In the beginning, self promotion to gain exposure is natural... note the steps taken towards building a career:First, gain social recognition that one is a real estate professionalApprentice with a brokerage or teamContact friends and family for referralsParticipate in social activities - tours, open housesStart farming - email/mail drip marketing campaignAfter six months, now what?Get coaching from Ferry, Buffini, etalTeaches tactics to continually maintain contact with your contact databaseBuy leads - cold callI've outlined in red text the actions that have a "hard sell" edge or are aggressive. Here's an alternative method to developing a career, the blue text uses the "Law of Attraction" that seems to be a part of the lore of real estate practice. Hard selling at the beginning of a career makes little sens...
More About: Selling , Alternative , Blogging , The Alternative

Tricks of the Trade - Equity Indexed Annuities
2008-04-13 22:55:00
The TV remote passed by NBC Dateline on the way to ESPN this evening (arggh, Denver won, Warriors slim chance for playoffs...) and caught my attention with coverage on how sales people are trained to sell equity indexed annuities. I know mortgage brokers who have gotten insurance licenses to sell these products. The MO is to do a cashout refi and then invest the cash into these long term annuities. The mortgage brokers make money on the refi and the annuity commissions. Dateline's Chris Hansen investigates the questionable sales techniques. The most interesting marketing tricks are paying for credible celebrity status. For $2,500, a firm offers to place the deceptive agent's name as the author of a book called Alligator Proofing your Estate. Another service offered by Annuity University (now a defunct site) provides a faux radio interview that agents provide as CDs to their clients in order to establish credibility.
More About: Tricks , Trade , Transparency , Equity , Annuities