Real Estate Marketing Seattle

XoomPad.com is our real estate idx website solution, how did we get there? I started in Seattle real estate back in 2003 with UrbanTango.com. Should we have gone down this path of creating this website idx solution.

What do you think about Real Estate marketing?
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Deceptive advertising in the Seattle and Puget Sound Real Estate Market.

So I did a Google search and used the Keywords “Sell My Home” and the
following adwords ads came up. The first one says “$2500 Sells Your House”

So, when the homeowner calls and says, “OK, I will pay $2500 to sell
my $395,000 house and I want you to pay the Buyers Agent 3% for doing
her or his job! How does that sound?”

Response. “Uh. Oh we can’t do that. We would loose money sir”

Homeowner, “The ad says $2500 sells my house. Are you telling me that
is not true?”

And once again another consumer believes, for good reason, and then
tells everyone that he knows that all realtors are liars that eat from
the same trough of sloppy greed and deception!

This form of DECEPTIVE ADVERTISING MUST STOP!

On another note. I was under the impression that it is not OK for
Realtors to use Realtor or Realtors in their web addresses. A team in
Pierce county has billboards everywhere that say
www.PuyallupRealtors..com and www.TacomaRealtors..com

So. If this type of advertising is acceptable and the use of realtor
in a domain name is OK then can I run this ad?

A review Closed Sales of the Northwest Multiple Listing Service as of March 2006 for King County

Residential: There was a drop in March ytd sales of 11%.  Year to Date average price jumped $60K or 14% from 2005 to 2006.  Average time on the market went down a few days in March, but stayed steady at 49 days. 

New Residential:  The nationally publicized unprecedented drop in new home sales was still evident in Seattle real estate market was almost 16% down March to March and about the same ytd.  Average price jumped almost $100K to $577K.  Average days on market went down from the previous March 12 days to 79 days.

Condo resales:  March to March units sold went down 12%, but overall ytd were only off less that half that.  Average price of a condo March 2006 was $299K vs. $248 the previous year a healthy 20% increase.  A sign of the viability of the condo market is the average time on market has dropped to 36 days in March 2006 from 54 in March 2005.

http://www.cb.wsu.edu/~wcrer/1885taskforce/
As quoted from Washington State DOL website:
In December 2003, the Washington Department of Licensing, Real Estate Program appointed a task force, co-chaired by Real Estate Commissioners Jim Carollo and Cindy White, to study in detail whether the real estate license law ( 18.85 RCW), originally written in 1925 and amended piecemeal since then, was capable of administering current industry practices. If it was judged deficient, the task force was asked to propose either comprehensive revision to the existing statute or a total rewrite of the legislation. Task force members represented the full spectrum of real estate licensees and the firms with which they are affiliated
Summary Powerpoint presentation:
http://www.cb.wsu.edu/~wcrer/1885taskforce/18-85TaskForceRECommission_files/frame.htm
DOL sponsored forum for feedback:
http://www.cb.wsu.edu/~wcrer/Forum_LegProposals/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=38
Detail of proposed changes:
http://www.cb.wsu.edu/~wcrer/1885taskforce/Z-0695.5.pdf
One of the most interesting and controversial changes being proposed is to change titles, eliminate “Salespersons” and create 3 levels of Brokers. In a sense give everyone the title of Broker. So far it is not clear what this accomplishes or what the intent of the change is. We will update you as we get further information.
Thr following from a powerpoint presentation outlines the breakdown.
3 Licensed Categories - Firm, Managing Broker and Broker.
• Firms designate one Managing Broker as “Designated Broker” with DOL
• Managing Broker can be designated as a “Designated Broker” for more than one Firm
• Higher level of supervision required for entry level Brokers (first 2 years)

Thanks to Julie Satko, from First American Title in Seattle, we are able to post this important information to our Seattle Real Estate Marketing Blog readers. Thanks Julie!
premiertools.firstam.com

Zillow enters crowded space

Part 1: Assessing accurate home values

By Bernice Ross - Inman News:

A hurricane the magnitude of Katrina has just hit the real estate industry. Did you notice?

Since its recent launch, the real estate industry has been buzzing about a new Web site called Zillow.com. According to Alexa.com, an Amazon Web site that ranks Web traffic, Zillow has rocketed to the top 200 Web sites in the world. That’s higher than Realtor.com or any other real estate Web site.

How did Zillow zoom to the top in real estate Web traffic? First, Zillow’s founders identified what the consumer wants when they visit a real estate Web site — access to listings and to comparable sales data. Second, Zillow’s CEO was the founder of Expedia. This well-funded team understands Web marketing. Third, the real estate community has been shaking in its boots — would Zillow be the next frontal assault on the full-service model? Would Zillow lead to more commission compression? These questions have had brokers and agents alike flocking to the Zillow Web site to see how this new business model will influence their business.

Real estate market just got bad news from the FED.  This just in from the federal Reserve Board, Ben does it good for the Benjamin-Dollar.   But it’s comments looking forward said they may have to rates again, means that US dollar got a boost in the currency markets.  The stock markets react with a down turn, and this is bad news for real estate sales.   Because Mortgage rates are probably going to go up, as mentioned by the Fed.

So what does this mean for real estate agents in Seattle, and in other Hot markets?  As we have said before, some slowing is going to be good for everyone, real estate in certain areas was simply too Hot.  My worries of a slowing turning in to a huge supply could be very bad for everyone too.  With the forecast of rates being increased in the future, I as a Seattle real estate agent have to worry.

More on what the rates will to do the real estate market in the near future. Stay tuned folks, and remember we see biased as we are real estate agents, but also know that we hold properties as real estate investments, and so we care more about our wealth accumlation from our investments than we do from our real estate transctions in Seattle or other real estate market!

Summarized from articles in the New York Times and article written by
Martin Crutsinger for AP March 24,2006

Is it good news for Seattle and elsewhere around the country?
For the first time in 9 years the Commerce Department is reporting
Friday that sales of new SFR (single family residences) fell by 10.5
percent seasonally adjusted or annually 1.05 million homes. This
follows a 5.3 percent drop in January. There were a record 548,000 new
homes available for sale by the end of the month. At the current sales
pace, that represents 6.3 months of supply, the largest inventory of
new homes since January 1996, as reported by the Commerce Department.

Another significant statistic is that the national median price of a
home in February fell 1.6 percent to 230,400 from January. This was
the biggest single month drop since April 1997.

What does this really mean?
The unprecedented activity from the last 5 years is starting to slow.=20
It is the markets where the biggest speculation is going on where they
will most likely find the greatest swings in market price and sales as
investors caught riding the wave of the real estate boom attempt to
exit the market.

An AP article cited that the signs of slowing market have shown up stronger than the last 7 years. I think Martin the author for associated press is right, what does that mean for the Seattle real Estate Market? Hour quotes the Commerce departments release of a report on “The 10.5 percent drop in new home sales in February followed a 5.3 percent decline in January and was the biggest drop since a similar 10.5 percent fall in April 1997. Sales of new homes have fallen in four of the past five months with the sales”.

This news was contrary to the real estate sales more meaningful numbers to me, that is the home re-sale numbers. Those to me are the real bench mark, as most homes sold on the economic current are the existing home sales. And those numbers effect the real estate market more, because that is where the wealth of todays home owners is held. A Report released on Tuesday cited that the existing home sales, rose 5.6% in February. This caught me, a real estate agent in Seattle, by surprise.

http://www.rismedia.com/index.php/article/articleview/13905/1/1/
Significant information on Real Estate News in Seattle and around the natio=
n.

Notes from the NAR Survey
The pace of change was noted as increasing and key areas highlighted were:

1) Consolidation of Multiple Listing Systems. Realtors are on record
as strongly supporting an increase in the area a MLS covers.
2) The increase in the number of Real Estate Agents (Realtors) not
supporting the MLS use of public websites. 63%

3) An increased concern for the need for information security while
implementation of security has not increased.

4) Real Estate Agents where and are interested in the data
integration such as being able to attach documents to MLS listings and
value the increased use of maps such as on www.Xoompad.com
The survey highlighted that the success of the MLS and Real Estate
Agent business model hinged on the delivery of services superior to
those non-members would offer.

5) The belief by some respondents that unfettered public access to
data is not good for the industry

6) The increased use of transaction management systems from 16 to 22
percent. Over half claiming it strengthened thier customer
relationship.

This regulation goes into effect on 4/1 and for clarity the text was
copied directly from the NWMLS homepage. As Seattle Real Estate
Agents who are part of the MLS system we support this rule to keep
those who would use the “MLS” to thier advantage. I don’t know why
the national multiple listing services have not protected it in some
way. I know as a Agent we and our team was cited for using “Olympia
Real Estate” at the top of our Lead generation search page by a
brokerage with that name and threatened will legal action it we didn’t
change it.

There are so many opportunistic groups and individuals wishing to cash
in some way in the Real Estate Market and with the DOJ breathing down
the backs of the Multiple Listing Services and thier member Real
Estate Agents. This promises to be an exciting year. If some clarity
does not prevail then we all risk being lumped into the same category
such as the way Car salesman and Lawyers are viewed in as in a similar
generalization. Differentiation is key.