REIData Announces New Property Profiles Analysis Tool

REIData Inc. announced their new Property Profiles analysis tool last Friday at the Realtors Conference & Expo in San Francisco.

The new tool provides one of the most complete sets of property information online. Real estate professionals can access tax assessor values for a three year period, competitive market analysis, school information, demographics, businesses, flood data, subdivision statistics, property photos, aerial imagery, street maps, and parcel maps.

In addition to a basic search, subscribers can utilize Advance Search criteria to more specifically maximize their searches, by filtering on location, general property characteristics, mortgage date and amount, sale date and amount, land value, acreage and other criteria. All search results may be downloaded or may be sent directly to labels.

Listing Light

Ever drive around looking for homes in the evening and find that you can't read the sign in the yard? Listing Light was invented to solve that problem! Listing Light is a durable "night light" for listing signs that has a built in timer to automatically turn on and off at specified times. With Listing Light, your sign will stand out on a street of darkness and will be viewable for hours longer than regular signs.

Listing Light is being introduced at $29.95 for one, or you can purchase four for $100. For more information or to make a purchase, visit www.listinglight.com.

Realtors Selling Haunted Houses

The Enterprise, a newspaper serving Boston, MA, has an article on Realtors selling haunted houses.

One such Realtor seemed to have a cow when he learned that a house he was selling was suspected of having a ghost. Meanwhile, the report goes on to describe another Realtor who had people think it would be cool to share a home with a ghost.

I'm thinking this might open up a new angle for a Realtor, selling haunted homes. There's gotta be a pretty good niche market in this. I'm sure there's enough crazy people out there specifically wanting to live in a haunted house. You just gotta do some homework to find those homes.

If someone wants to live with ghost badly enough, I'm sure they'd be willing to pay a high commission. The sellers wouldn't pay any commission to encourage them to sell, while the buyer might pay an additional 10% on top of the selling price, just to find themselves a ghost!

Reply! Inc. Launches Customized Real Estate Reports

Reply! Inc. today announced the launch of customized neighborhood real estate reports for consumers, claiming to add more value to their member agents and brokers.

The company markets its consumer website as a one-stop resource, providing them tools and help on buying a home, selling a home, determining the value of their home, and finding investment properties. When a consumer fills out information, Reply! forwards that information to one of its member agents.

Realtors and real estate agents can sign up with Reply!, through its "AgentConnect" website to be a member agent, and receive these leads. The new customized neighborhood real estate reports are delivered to consumers automatically, as a way of satisfying their initial requests for information. An agent dispatched to the consumer then follows up with more detailed information.

Man! I Feel Like A Realtor!

Sandy Geroux, a Realtor, trainer, speaker, and coach, has recorded a song entitled, "Man! I Feel Like A Realtor!", based on Shania Twain's hit song, "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!".

It's pretty good too. You can hear it online here.

There's actually a sales pitch at the end of the song, where she talks about buying the CD of the song, or requesting her speaking services. In fact, she's done other parodies, including "Man! I Feel Underwritten!", "Man! I Feel Like A Broker!", and "Man! I Feel Super Legal!".

Avery Dennison Offers New Online Bulk Mail Service to Realtors

Avery Dennison, who makes all those label products, launched their new "Print and Mail Center" website, claiming to provide Realtors and other customers an online way to send out bulk mailers.

An agent can upload their mailer design to the Print and Mail Center website, rent Avery Dennison's mailing list, and have them print and deliver the mailers, all from the comfort of their home PC.

Avery claims its mailing list can reach over 200 million people in 104 million households. You can specify the zip codes you want to target, income range, age, gender, home value, among others. In addition to residential addresses, you can also target their opt-in e-mail address list, reaching 14.5 million subscribers.

Avery Dennison will be showing their new Print and Mail Center at the Real Estate Expo Show in San Francisco, CA between October 28th-31st, 2005.

Carry Your Property Listings on an iPod

RealEstateShows.com announced they will be demonstrating their new "iPod Shows" at the upcoming National Association of Realtors Annual Convention in San Francisco.

This new feature allows Realtors to carry their presentations on an iPod, and display them on their client's television screens.

Current RealEstateShows.com users will be able to upgrade their service for a One Year License fee of $29.95. iPod Shows will be released December 1, 2005.

CellSigns Releases Enhanced Service

QWASI, the company that owns the CellSigns text-messaging, lead-generation service, unveiled its new CellSigns Version 2.0.

The newest feature in Version 2.0 allows a home buyer to receive a brochure via e-mail by sending a text-message through their cellphone. Dubbed, "Text-for-Email", the buyer creates a text-message on their cellphone, and includes his e-mail address, along with the property ID#. CellSigns then sends an electronic brochure to the buyer via e-mail.

Previously, CellSigns delivered property info only to buyers' cellphones.

CellSigns differs from competing House4Cell in that the listing agent does not automatically receive the phone number of an inquiring buyer. Rather, a buyer must either contact the agent directly, or request a callback through CellSigns. House4Cell automatically delivers the inquiring buyer's phone number to the agent.

KB Home will Build "Martha Stewart" Homes

Last week, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. and KB Home, announced an agreement to build a new line of homes based on Martha Stewarts's own stylings and tastes.

The plans call for 650 New England-style homes in the affluent town of Cary, North Carolina, a suburb of Raleigh. Construction is beginning right now, with model homes ready for show by early next year.

A KB Home spokesman said the company has already gotten about 650 "expressions of interest" from potential buyers. KB Home is offering 12 models in townhomes and single-family dwellings, ranging from 1,300 to 4,000 square feet and with prices from $150,000 to $400,000.

Three of the home designs are based on Stewart's own homes in Maine and New York state, and includes interior options that the domestic Diva herself has picked out.

This example of co-branding is not new however. St. Lawrence Homes contracted with John Deere last year, that includes landscaping and lawn equipment from the gardening company itself. The entrance sign for the community has John Deere's logo right on it.

How to Cultivate More Sales Leads from the Internet

John A. Jacobsen, a real estate agent for Coldwell Banker Burnet, in St. Paul, Minnesota, will be sharing his success stories and hints in a teleconference entitled, "Incubating the Internet Consumer".

It's open to any real estate agent.

The teleconference is scheduled for this Tuesday, October 25, 2005, at 1:00pm Eastern.

To get in on the teleconference, just call (800) 745-2192. If you want to submit questions in advance, e-mail them to agentsuccess@realestate.com

Realtor.com Improves Visibility of Rental Listings

Inman News is reporting that the listings of rental properties on the Realtor.com website now have their own special section.

Homestore, the company that operates Realtor.com website, added a new tab at the top of the page, so that persons looking for rental properties, can go straight there.

Previously, in order to find the rental properties on Realtor.com, you had to go through several pages of homes for sale. Now, you can just click on "Rentals" at the website, and not have to see all the homes other agents are selling.

While rentals are not necessarily a big deal for most real estate agents, it is a big deal for agents in major markets, particularly Manhattan.

Read the full story.

Yahoo seeks 1 million Square Feet

I guess things are looking good for Yahoo.

The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports that the darling of Sunnyvale is looking for as much as one million square feet of office space in the Bay Area to accommodate its rapid expansion. And they want it sooner, not later.

Could they have picked a cheaper place?

Based on commercial real-estate industry rules of thumb, a million square feet is enough space for 3,500 to 4,000 employees.

Among the sites most frequently mentioned Sobrato Development Companys' Great American Corporate Center in Santa Clara, with 300,000 sq.ft. of space and another 180,000 sq.ft. in an additional building yet to be built.

Read the full article.

Google in Talks with Real Estate Data Provider

San Jose Mercury News reports that Google is talking to CoStar Group to integrate their real estate data into Google's mapping system.

The reports goes on to note that Yahoo is talking to CoStar also.

"Google approached us some number of months ago wanting to work on some initiatives with us, and we have licensed some content to Google already," said Andrew Florance, chief executive officer of CoStar Group. He didn't disclose terms.

CoStar tracks more than 200 bits of data on commercial buildings in the 80 or so biggest markets in the United States. It also plans to expand to the top 200 markets. It also has operations in the United Kingdom.

The combination of CoStar's data with Google Earth's technology, allows users to zoom in and "fly" through cities and neighborhoods, makes for "mind-bending" possibilities, Florance said.

Real the full article.

Where the World's Best Real Estate Investor is Betting Now

Fortune Magazine is running a story on Tom Barrack, described as "the world's best real estate investor".

He runs a $25 billion portfolio of trophy assets, from the Raffles hotel chain in Asia to the Aga Khan's former resort in Sardinia to Resorts International. Barrack has done deals with Saudi princes, Texas oilmen, a Caribbean dictator, even with Donald Trump. He bought the Fukuoka Dome, Japan's Yankee Stadium. He bought and sold New York City's Plaza hotel, turning a fast $160 million profit, as well as London's tony Savoy chain, netting another $270 million.

The Donald himself admits, "Tom has an amazing vision of the future, an ability to see what's going to happen that no one else can match."

So what does Tom think about the future of real estate in America?

In short, it's bad. His advice? Europe.

Read the full article. Or, skip past the fluff, and read the good part.

Photo by Alan Levenson

Don't Become a Real Estate Agent

Ryan Johnson, a columnist for the Arizona Daily Wildcat, tells college students not to bother seeking a career in real estate.

Considering the State of Arizona has seen the largest gain in the number of licensed agents (18.4) from last year, Johnson is quick to note that the market in the Grand Canyon State is on its way down.

He also goes on to say that consumers are finding fewer reasons to hire an agent, contrary to what the NAR said in its 2005 Public Awareness Campaign...

Besides, homebuyers and sellers are starting to see how little real estate agents do. Other than provide basic information (information that, as real estate agents become more obsolete, will be provided on a consulting basis for much less than it is now), realtors merely fill out forms and occasionally handle basic tasks such as setting up appointments and negotiating.

Johnson also goes to talk about online MLS websites, and folks using Craig's List. Read his full report.

Realtor Popularity Reaches All Time High

The National Association of Realtors released the findings of its tracking survey on its Public Awareness Campaign.

The study shows public opinion of realtors has hit new highs in popularity.

The survey's composite image score of 19 beliefs, opinions and attitudes about realtors rose from 56 percent in 2004 to 59 percent. The survey also found that the likelihood of real estate consumers to use a realtor over a non-realtor, rose 4 points to 64 percent this year.

In addition, some consumer beliefs and opinions that had the greatest improvement...

• "Realtors bring the latest technology to buying and selling a home" (up 6 points to 63 percent)



• "Realtors have the expertise to help sellers price their home fairly" (up 4 points to 64 percent)



• "Realtors earn their commission" (up 6 points to 50 percent)
  
  
• "Realtors advocate private property rights of homeowners" (up 12 points to 54 percent)

Read the full report.

Winners of 2005 Good Neighbor Awards

REALTOR Magazine has announced the names of the five recipients of its sixth annual Good Neighbor Awards.

David C. Forward, Weichert, Realtors, Medford, N.J., who founded the International Children's Aid Foundation, which supports more than 200 orphans in Romania;

Howard G. Freeman, Freeman Realty Inc., Gainesville, Fla., who founded STOP Children's Cancer in 1981 and has raised more than $2 million for research to prevent, treat and cure cancer in children;

Greg Garrett, greg garrett realty.com, Newport News, Va., who in 2000 founded Orphan Helpers which has raised more than $1 million to support children in orphanages and detention centers in El Salvador and Honduras;

Carole E. Sharp, Coldwell Banker Neuhaus Real Estate, Staunton, Ill., who almost single-handedly runs the Staunton Food Pantry in a small town outside St. Louis;

Ouida Spencer, RE/MAX Executives Inc., Atlanta, who for 25 years has actively volunteered with the United Cerebral Palsy of Georgia as a leader, fundraiser and advocate for the housing rights of the disabled.

Each of the five winners will receive a $7,500 grant for their volunteer cause, a crystal trophy, and the right to use the Good Neighbor Awards logo on their Web site and promotional materials.

The recipients and a guest also will be sent, expenses paid, to the 2005 Realtors Conference & Expo in San Francisco in October, where they will receive their awards in front of an audience of 6,000 Realtors and their guests attending the conference.

Text Message Your "For Sale" Signs

House4Cell is a text-messaging service for real estate agents, allowing them to deliver property info to the cell phones of prospective buyers.

It first involves hanging a special sign from a For Sale sign. The sign contains unique codes allowing prospective buyers to get property info delivered to their cell phone in the form of a text message.

When the text message is delivered to the prospective buyer, the agent is notifed on his or her cell phone, along with the phone number of the prospective buyer. Hence, it generates leads.

Agents can update their listings and get activity reports on House4Cell's website.

Costs start at $29.99 per month for 3 property listings, and 10 free inquiries ($0.20 per inquiry thereafter).

Realtors® New Information Security Guides Released

The Center for REALTOR Technology, has released a series of new briefing papers on information security. These papers are meant to be read by real estate brokers and other executives in the real estate industry. They explain the basic information on protecting the security of personal and proprietary information.

There are five briefing papers in all, written in a user-friendly format:

• Information Security - A Guide to Getting Started: Provides a general overview designed to help office managers culminate an interest among workers in practicing information security.



• Information Security Management Principles: Provides insight into security decision making, planning and budgeting.
  
  
• Information Security Key Concepts: Explains the key concepts behind confidentiality, sharing information with trusted parties, and assigning proper rights for data access.



• Information Security Decision Insight: Explains how to examine the office and office systems to identify potential risks.



• Information Security Regulatory Overview: A presentation of existing laws and regulations on privacy and security.

According to NAR Vice President and CRT Director Mark Lesswing, "The REALTOR® Secure program is designed to safeguard the confidentiality, integrity and availability of consumers' personal information, as well as real estate business assets."

To obtain copies of these briefing papers in electronic form, you can download them here from the NAR website.

Otherwise, agents will probably be getting them in one form or another.

PicoPad Offers New Freebie for Agents

PicoPad is a tiny set of notebook paper and pen designed to fit inside a man's wallet. The company that makes it, Everyday Innovations, is offering the capability to print your business logo, or business card, on the back of PicoPad's case.

PicoPad created some buzz for itself last May when it was first unveiled at the National Stationery Show in New York. Reporters and bloggers around the country billed it as "The Poor Man's PDA". Today, Everyday Innovations announced nationwide availability for PicoPad.

The custom printed PicoPads are offered through a special service called "Creative Concepts", an outlet created by Everyday Innovations. Agents can deliver them to neighborhood home as freebies, mortgage brokers can hand them out at trade shows. Due to PicoPad's "gimmick factor" they're more likely to be popular than regular paper pads and refrigerator magnets.

Real Estate Broker Adds Links to Competitor Websites

In what is being described as an "unprecedented move", Century 21 Kevin B. Brown & Associates today announced that their website was re-launched to include links to all of their competitors' websites.

Kevin B. Brown himself explained that doing this provides his firm with an advantage by creating knowledged consumers. "Traditionally, it has been an unnecessarily difficult task for the buyer to gain an educated view of our local marketplace," Brown notes. "The website is a one-stop-shop for buyers looking to make a well-informed decision in a real estate market in which data is obscure and is neither standardized nor aggregated."

While I imagine Brown has a point that it's in his firm's best interest to educate his clients, what he's done is only symbolic at best. As a website publisher, with over eight years experience in this line of work, I can tell you that providing links to competitor websites does little to help your clients or your competitors. The fact is that all Internet users, who are looking to buy or sell a home, has already visited Brown's competitors' websites.

That is, anyone who taken the time visit his website, has already taken the time to visit several other websites and online MLS databases, and is therefore well armed in detecting an agent trying pulling the wool over their eyes. At best, Brown is simply acknowledging this by informing his own agents that there are no secrets to hide from their clients.

St. Joseph the Patron Saint of Real Estate

Realtors, are you looking for some extra help selling property, and getting clients? Maybe you need a little Divine intervention.

Archie McPhee sells these little statuettes of St. Joseph, for just $4.95.

The legend of St. Joseph bringing good fortune to home sellers is no novelty, in fact, it's been around for well over a hundred years, going back into the 1800s. In fact, some say it's gone as far back into the Middle Ages. In the United States, the practice really took off during the 1990s, with agents buying up tons of these statuettes.

Urban Legends has published a lot more detail on this.

Realtors Fighting Banks and the Feds

$61 billion is how much home buyers paid in commissions to real estate agents, a 42 percent increase in only four years, according to East Bay Business Times.

Wayne Abernathy, executive directory of financial institutions policy for the American Bankers Association, feels that the National Association of Realtors has been effective in preventing banks and discount brokers from offering real estate services, thereby preventing competition in the marketplace.

The banking industry wants to get in on the action, but Congress has thus far sympathized with Realtors, blocking their entry into the market. However, the Executive Branch feels otherwise. Department of Justice sued the National Association of Realtors last month, contending the group is blocking the growth of Internet-based real estate services by allowing brokers to withhold their property listings from other brokers' Web sites. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission has urged states not to adopt laws that require real estate brokers to provide a minimum level of service.

Read the full article at East Bay Business Times

Georgia Realtors Push for Eminent Domain Laws

A group of Georgia Realtors on Wednesday launched a media push that advocates changing the state's eminent domain laws to protect residential and commercial property from being seized by governments for private development.

The City of Stockbridge is trying to negotiate with a couple who owns a piece of land that the city wants to develop into government facilities, retail stores, residential buildings. The couple happen to own a flower shop on that same piece of land, which the city happened to have condemned. The couple is challenging the comdemnation.

Steve Davis, a State Legislator, who also is a Realtor, said the city is expediting its condemnation to "usurp" the Legislature before it can take up the issue during the General Assembly.

Read the full story at News-Daily.

Frontier GMAC Real Estate Offers New Training Program

Citing a statistic that 13 out of every 14 real estate agents nationwide fail and leave the business within two years, Frontier GMAC Real Estate announced its "Journey to Mastery" training program for agents.

The Denver based home services company has set up a two-prong approach to prepare new agents for the long haul. And it's free.

First, the company pays for qualified candidates to obtain a Colorado real estate license, and then provides extensive training and assistance through a specialized training program, that teaches agents business skills used by top-producing agents. The company claims its Journey to Mastery program is valued at $7,000.00.

With so many agents failing to succeed in the business, Frontier GMAC hopes to leverage its training program to attract new agents into its company.

FSBO Service Launches Online Mapping Tool

America's Choice International, Inc., an FSBO service based in Buffalo, NY, launched what it calls, "the first and only residential home GPS map based visual searching system". Called Map Choice™, this tool allows home buyers to search for available homes through the use of an interactive map.

"It allows users to virtually drive through neighborhoods to find available homes and to enter those homes online, 24 hours a day seven days a week," according to Jed Carrol, Esq., C.E.O. of America's Choice International, Inc. "Map Choice™ is currently available only in the Buffalo, NY Metro Region. We plan to roll it out to across our multi-state network shortly."

NAR Under Fire from Department of Justice

MortgageNewsDaily published a good piece explaining the trouble the National Association of Realtors has gotten itself into over trying to prevent online real estate brokers from competing.

What is "Scraping"?

The Center for Realtor Technology, a branch of the National Association of Realtors, has launched a piece of software called, "NoScrape", which they bill as a tool to protect Realtor websites from being "scraped".

Scraping is a years old practice of collecting information from a website through some kind of automated means. It usually involves a "robot". The robot is similar to the robots used by search engines like Google and Yahoo, to gather information about websites on the Internet.

Except these robots are used to identify real estate agent websites, and then collect information about their property listings. That information is then used to populate an independent property listings database.

The National Association of Realtors says scraping is a big problem, and developed the NoScrape software to help its member agents protect their websites from being scraped.

But exactly what problem are they talking about?

The bottom line is that a home seller wants to sell their home, as quickly as possible. Hence, it's in the best interest of the home seller to get their property listed in as many places, in order to maximize its exposure. Scraping is certainly helping home sellers, and home buyers.

It obvious that scraping threatens the MLS organizations, as independent operators of internet-based listings databases are gaining in popularity. What's really going on here is the NAR propagating a myth, in order to prevent internet entrepreneurs from chipping away at their dominance.

Realtors and real estate agents are better off embracing the new technologies, and finding a way to succeed withing them. They should take a look at the success that Realtor John Mudd has achieved, by marketing his properties online through his blog and RSS feeds.

Happy Escrow Month!

California Governor Schwarzenegger acknowledged this October as Escrow Month. With over 20,000 escrows carried out each day in California, the California Escrow Association (CEA) is looking to "de-mystify" the escrow process for California buyers. Home seeking is stressful enough in itself, and then escrow begins! The escrow process is confusing and frustrating to buyers, especially if they are uninformed. To help, the California Escrow Association (CEA) is offering the following tips:

Top 5 Tips to a Smooth Closing

-- Hire a certified professional. There are many intricacies and details involved in the escrow process, as well as many kinds of escrow. Applicable laws change, and new ones are constantly created. It is unwise to consider entering into escrow without the aid of a professional.

-- Come clean and avoid potential problems. If you are a buyer with uncertain credit, let your broker or mortgage lender know ahead of time. They are qualified to assist you in getting your credit rating into shape. Sellers should let escrow officers know in advance about potential hurdles, such as a judgment or lien.

-- Don't be the unwitting cause of delays. To ensure a smooth escrow close, much cooperation and communication is necessary. Always be responsive and timely to the requests of the professionals assisting you.

-- Get insured. Take care of home insurance needs well in advance of the escrow
close.

-- Walk through. Complete all walk-through inspections such as home inspections, swimming pool/spa inspections, roof inspection, and those for termites, dry rot, and other wood-destroying fungi, prior to the escrow close.

For more information from the California Escrow Association, visit their
website http://www.ceaescrow.org/

Got $28 million to spare....

Got an extra $28 million to spare? If so you just might be interested in the former home of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The home is listed by Westside Estate Agency and the listing can be viewed at their website: http://www.w-e-agency.com/

But before you go running out the door hoping for a tour, be prepared to prove you've got the funds! It's been reported that potential buyers and agents are asked to sign a confidentiality agreement before viewing the home and must also show proof of assets needed to purchase.

Buy Land on the Moon

Lunar Federation Inc., who bills itself as the "Earth's Official Lunar and Mars Real Estate Agency", is actively seeking distributors and retailers to market its 1-acre deed gift packages to the consuming public.

You heard right, they're selling off parcels of land on the Moon and Mars.

Purchasers of the standard Lunar or Mars property package receive a deed, mineral rights, a site map, the lunar or mars constitution and bill of rights, and a registration card. The cost? $29.95 per acre.

I guess you'd call it a deal that's "out of this world".

You might think this is just a cute novelty gift for sci-fi fans. But nope, it's serious.

Anthony M. Grasso is the company's CEO. His company's goal is to one day travel to the Moon and Mars and colonize them with citizens. Folks who purchase parcels from Lunar Federation get land rights once they move in and begin colonization efforts.

So what gives them the legal right to sell parcels of land on the Moon? The company explains that the Moon isn't a legal entity, and no country on Earth has any legal rights to it. It's just there. It's kinda like when Americans migrated westward, and asserted themselves over native tribes. Lunar Federation, Inc. plans to become the first group to set up a community on the Moon, and thereby claiming a portion of it as their own.

So when does the colonization begin? As soon as the company sells off 1 billion shares of land. It will then have the money to fund a trip to the Moon. The ten persons who bought the most shares will be the first passengers, and also have rights to set up a governmental framework.

Trulia is a True Property Search Engine

Trulia is the name of a new online property listings database. It's available online for home buyers to use, allowing them to browse seemingly millions of listings all over the United States. Though right now, it's in beta form, and only contains California properties.

What makes this unique is that it has a robot (or spider) that crawls the Internet searching for real estate agent websites that feature online property listings. It then captures the information from those sites and stores it into its database. For all intents and purposes, it's the same thing that Google and Yahoo both do already, but is focused only on property listings.

If you are a real state agent, and your website also publishes property listings through an XML feed, you can submit your feed to Trulia, and it will automatically update its listings whenever your feed is updated.

So how do old listings get removed from their database? Well, if the robot revisits an agent's website, and finds the property no longer there, then it can be removed from its database. However, this may mean that Trulia runs the risk of having lots of outdated property listings. If an agent is providing Trulia with an XML feed, then it can remove old listings as soon as the agent removes the listing from the feed.