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Mortgage Mania 17 - Foreclosures Inside The Bubble
2008-06-07 22:42:00
Long-time Mortgage Mania readers, (aka Mortgage Maniacs) know that I’m an avid reader of the New York Times, so it should come as no surprise that I would have some comments on this article in the Friday June 6 edition regarding the continuing foreclosure crisis affecting consumers across the country. Authors Bajaj and Grynbaum review some ...
More About: Real Estate , Foreclosures , Inside , Bubble

Today?s Market Updates via Twitter
2008-06-04 09:59:00
MLSPIN slaps CondoDomain … shades of last year’s NWLMLS vs. Redfin slap-down? http://snurl.com/2cicm # Powered by Twitter Tools. Share This No tag for this post.
More About: Market , Consumer , Today , Updates

Today?s Market Updates via Twitter
2008-05-31 09:59:00
Today’s broker tour had only 5 homes. Inventory is low right now. Best property was 123 Main Street. # Powered by Twitter Tools. Share This No tag for this post.
More About: Market , Consumer , Today , Updates

Today?s Market Updates via Twitter
2008-05-30 09:59:00
@larrychiang Of course! Baxter’s always welcome…does he want the guest house or the main residence? # http://twitpic.com/1l54 - The action on Palmer Lane in Fair Oaks (Menlo Park) continues…673 Palmer Lane on market last week — 4/3.5/$ … # Powered by Twitter Tools. Share This No tag for this post.
More About: Market , Consumer , Today , Updates

Right Along With the Grunge Look, the Housing Crisis is Over
2008-05-28 19:26:00
Yes, for those of you gents who still may be holding on to the rather relaxed “grunge” look from the 1990’s, I’ve got a newsflash for you: grunge, along with the current housing crisis, is over.   Articles about the housing crisis ending have been few and buried in their respective periodical, my favorite of which was in TIME magazine ...
More About: Grunge , Housing , Crisis

Today?s Market Updates via Twitter
2008-05-25 09:59:00
Memorial Day weekend — expect little open house traffic, and not many open houses to check out. Most Realtors take a break this weekend. # Powered by Twitter Tools. Share This No tag for this post.
More About: Market , Consumer , Today , Updates

Today?s Market Updates via Twitter
2008-05-24 09:59:00
http://twitpic.com/1dat - Testing from email with attachment # 2 new Palo Alto listings in last 24 hours: 2916 Ramona ($2.5M; 5/3) from Lynn Chou; 890 N Cal. ($1.6M 5/2.5) from Tim McKeegan # Eye candy alert: 5070 Alpine Road, Portola Valley. Only $8.4M! 7800 sq ft home. Listing agent Pat Looney # Palo Alto median home price now just under ...
More About: Market , Consumer , Today , Updates , Twitter

How to Avoid Foreclosure, Part 2 of 3
2008-05-20 09:20:00
After a writing hiatus, I’m back! It’s been a crazy spring. As a Certified Foreclosure and Short Sale Specialist, I’ve been very busy consulting with homeowners and working with them to avoid foreclosure. Every day, I’m talking with people who are facing the prospect of losing their home. In part 1 of this 3-part series, I talked about the ...
More About: Real Estate , Part , Avoid

Today?s Market Updates via Twitter
2008-05-19 09:59:00
Testing twitter from 3oceans # Testing shorter url: http://snurl.com/29duq # http://twitpic.com/16qp <- Testing twitpic # http://twitpic.com/16r2 <- Testing twitpic from email # http://twitpic.com/16rc <- Testing twitpic from centro # http://twitpic.com/16vj <- Seen on lytton and waverley, palo alto ca # @mwurzer Try this WP twitter plugin: http://snurl.com/29h2v # @PhoenixREGuy 98.9 is impressive! Congrats… # Powered by Twitter Tools. Share This No tag for ...
More About: Market , Consumer , Today , Updates

Public Service Announcement: Nationwide Home Mortgage Loan Company Is Stea
2008-05-14 23:56:00
Another despicable splogger is stealing content from various places on the Internet, including this blog.  Sadly, the side gives no contact information, so I’m not able to send my usual polite “cease and desist” notice. Hopefully this post and picture — which will soon appear on the Nationwide Home Mortgage Loan Corporate blog — will embarrass ...
More About: Industry , Public Service , Company , Public

Sorry, If You Build It, They Are Not Coming
2008-05-13 00:20:00
(photo credit: mop squad) Kevin Costner was hot 20 years ago in Field of Dreams. So was that comment “If you build it, they will come.” I received a fantastic comment from a home buyer today for my previous post How Listing Agents Unintentionally Sabotage Their Own Staged Listings: Danica Says: May 12th, 2008 at 10:51 am That ...
More About: Real Estate , Advertising , Strategy , Online Advertising , Buyer

Symantec Issues High-Priority Security Patch For Trulia Widgets, Called ?Wo
2008-05-09 02:04:00
Symantec, the Internet security firm, today released what they described as a “code red” security patch for all real estate bloggers currently using the now-infamous “Google Juice Sucking” Trulia widget. Tipped off by an anonymous Active Rain’er who had come across this discussion thread, which in turn had been prompted by good investigative sniffing [sniff one, ...
More About: Security , Humor , Industry , Widgets , Issues

A Perfect Example Of Co-opetition: The Real Estate Industry … Barry
2008-05-07 02:02:00
Maybe it’s the frustrated business school professor in me, or the memories of sitting in Professor Barry Nalebuff’s classes during business school, but what has fascinated me the most about the ongoing debate about Trulia’s no-follow outbound listings links (started here by Galen Ward, then continued here, here, here, and here) is not the arcana of the no-follow tag, not the dissection of SEO intricacies, and not really even the question of what is or is not appropriate to do with listings online. No, what really fascinates me about this debate is how it accentuates co-opetition in the real estate industry.  Co-opetition is simply the notion that companies compete and co-operate simultaneously.  Arch-rivals Northrup Grumman and Boeing go mano-a-mano to get a lucrative government contract … and the winner often subcontracts part of the project to its rival.  Microsoft and Oracle have competing database platforms but often sell eachother’s products. I...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Industry , Real , Perfect

Lies, Damn Lies, And Statistics: What Mark Twain and Benjamin Disraeli Woul
2008-05-05 04:20:00
Continuing my earlier rant about how real estate statistics don’t always tell an accurate story, let’s look at what Menlo Park’s numbers seem to indicate for our ongoing robust spring market. First, a recap:  courtesy of our good friends the quant jocks over at Altos Research, we saw that the median price numbers for Menlo Park had dropped by some 30% — from $1.25M to $850K — over the 9 month period from April of 2007 to January 2008. That drop in median price, however, by no means reflected the reality on the ground in Menlo Park — in other words, it is not true that a home in Menlo Park that was worth $1M in April 2007 was suddenly only worth $700K in January 2008.  The reason for that disconnect was simply the change in the mix of properties being offered:  in the last half of 2007, the inventory of lower priced homes east of 101 swelled, dramatically pulling down the overall median. As if to emphasize that disconnect, we see what appears t...
More About: Statistics , Mark Twain , Mark , Damn , Lies

Have we really hit bottom? Market statistics vs. media hype
2008-04-26 03:13:00
As our resident expert, Kevin Boer noted in his April 1 posting, the housing market officially hit  bottom a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who  were  skeptical of his information given the  April 1 posting date, and Kevin’s well known reputation for satire and irony, the California Association of Realtors published some ...
More About: Media , Market , Statistics , Hype , Bottom

As The Market Slows, Lawyers are Salivating, Part 2
2008-04-15 00:22:00
Some of you will remember my post on the lawsuit in Southern California where the buyers of a home were suing their agent because they felt they overpaid, and the agent had acted to hide that information from them (Refresher available here). This case had lawyers salivating, and brokers trembling, as it potentially could provide precedent ...
More About: Lawyers , Market , Part

Redfin Select: School-Marmish Innovator?s Dilemma? Becoming What They Hat
2008-04-09 08:03:00
With surprisingly little fanfare, Redfin , that pesky little Seattle brokerage the real estate industry loves to hate, announced yesterday their “Redfin Select” program, which looks suspiciously more and more like … a traditional brokerage offering. Redfin’s initial business model, which made great sense in the VC’s conference rooms, was to outsource a big chunk of the ...
More About: Industry , Consumer , School , Dilemma

How to use Facebook to brand yourself and expand your business network
2008-04-08 19:21:00
I have to honest. I have been reading Kevin’s posts on social media and blogging, I am itching to write one on the topic myself since internet & blogging has done tremendous for my business. So here it is! (We will continue the regular programming on staging for next post I promise.) I have been ...
More About: Business , Network , Facebook , Brand , Business network

Blogging Stressing You Out? You?re Not Alone, Says The New York Times. A
2008-04-06 22:15:00
The gray lady herself comments today on the stress of blogging:  intense competition to be the first to break a story, the seemingly relentless need to be on top of all the news. There is a cost to this: Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on ...
More About: New York , Industry , Blogging , York , New York Times

What Bad Housing Market? What We Need Are Tips On How To Win Multiple Offe
2008-04-04 18:00:00
Yes, the market is bad in many parts of the country — even many parts of the Bay Area.  But real estate, as the adage goes, is local, local, local — and in many of the good school district parts of the Bay, prices continue to go up and multiple offers are back in vogue.  ...
More About: Humor , Industry , Market , Tips , Consumer

Is Social Media A Waste Of Time? Texas Realtor Magazine: Yes. Sherry Chr
2008-04-04 07:40:00
Michael Parker of Blackwater Consulting Group, writing in the Texas Realtor Magazine , says “Yes”: I respectfully call social networking and Web 2.0 great hype with great future promise. I just don?t think they help sell houses today in any proportion to the emphasis they are receiving. [Sidenote:  What’s Michael doing writing an article about social media in ...
More About: Social , Media , Time

Irony Of Ironies: The Mechanical Turk Behind The ?Zestimate of Mortgages?
2008-04-03 06:37:00
Zillow, the perennial surprise-maker of online real estate, has just launched its long-anticipated foray into the mortgage world with a “Mortgage Marketplace.”  The company’s original online real estate product — the controversial “Zestimate” — is a computer algorithm estimating the value of homes.  The logical mechanism behind a “Mortgage Marketplace” would thus also be a ...
More About: Industry , Irony , Consumer , Zillow

Market Bottom Officially Reached At 2:34pm This Afternoon; Impasse Between
2008-04-02 05:37:00
The news that all fence-sitters have been waiting for finally happened: at 2:34pm this afternoon, the bottom of the real estate market was officially reached when 356 Avocado Lane in Stockton finally sold — with multiple offers — after 30 months on the market. Said listing agent Trevor Blackstone of Stockton Realty: “Phew! ...
More About: Humor , Industry , Market , Consumer , Afternoon

Teresa Boardman NOT Selected As Keynote Speaker At Republican National Conv
2008-04-02 01:28:00
Just a few months after we got the shocking news that Odysseus was not invited to be the keynote speaker at either Inman’s or NAR’s convention, comes the doubly shocking news that our very own Teresa Boardman was not invited to be the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention, to be held in Minneapolis/St. ...
More About: Keynote , Real Estate , Speaker

Breaking News ? 4Realz And Bloodhound Unchained To Merge?First Joint Confer
2008-04-01 21:45:00
Civilians and other normal people — scat.  This post is only for hard core re.net geeks. This just in via the grapevine…despite an earlier, uh, tiff, Dustin Luther and Greg Swann, formerly best friends, most recently not so tight…have made up.  Dustin’s highly acclaimed 4Realz seminar series and Greg Swann’s Bloodhound Unchained conference will soon be ...
More About: News , Breaking News , Industry , Breaking , Merge

Dan Green Corners New .Blog Domain Market Within 2 Minutes Of Opening
2008-04-01 11:05:00
Dan Green , the well-known — and very entrepreneurial — mortgage re.net 2.0 blogger, mortgage broker, businessman, and 50% of the brains behind the re.net’s “Associated Press of blogging” pinged me last night with some interesting, if perhaps geeky, news:  a new top-level domain .Blog has been announced and will be available starting today. What does this ...
More About: Humor , Industry , Market , Domain

How to Avoid Foreclosure, Part 1 of 3
2008-03-19 23:10:00
More and more these days, it seems I’m hearing good people say, “What are my options if I’m facing foreclosure?” In the last few years, so many people bought homes with either 100% financing or risky loans that have negative amortization and/or an interest-only payment for a couple of years which adjusts after the initial period. God ...
More About: Real Estate , Foreclosure , Part , Avoid

Eliot Spitzer and Making Sense of the New Conforming Loan Limits
2008-03-18 20:07:00
If you’re Eliot Spitzer, probably three feelings come to mind: panic, disorientation and regret.  But if you’re a potential home buyer in the Peninsula region of California, you have good reason to feel excited, encouraged and confident!  Why?  If you read my last post last month, you know that the conforming loan limits for many ...
More About: Sense , Loan , Eliot Spitzer , Limits

What Eliot Spitzer Can Teach You About Listing Photos
2008-03-18 04:19:00
Unlike Hollywood, sex scandal is not a career launcher for politicians like Eliot Spitzer, now former New York Governor and someone who had single-handedly tanked his own career. First of all, he is no Paris Hilton. People don’t want to link him with a sex scandal. Second of all, there is a drastic difference between his ...
More About: Photos , Real Estate , Eliot Spitzer , Listing

Introducing ? Cindy Lin?Stager Extraordinaire!
2008-03-18 04:18:00
I’m delighted to announce that local stager Cindy Lin has graciously agreed to become a 3 Oceans contributor.  She runs Staged4More and its accompanying blog.  Talented, opinionated, humorous, a little sassy and irreverent  … what more could you want in a contributor — or a stager? Her inaugural post gives us an Elliot Spitzer object lesson… Take ...
More About: Industry , Consumer , Staging