360Digest

I heard a few weeks ago that Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) quit his job at MS to work at start-up Podtech and was moving to CA, then just read in Zillow blog about the Scobles listing their home with Coldwell Banker Bain’s own Stan Mackey.  Congrats to Stan for the listing and to the Scoble’s for their good sense.  There’s been so much criticism of real estate agents lately, it’s nice to know that someone of Scoble’s stature still feels that a good Realtor brings value to the process of a home sale. 

With respect and affection, Scoble describes Mackey as his ”real estate guy and friend”, and reading Mackey’s blog, you can see the feeling is mutual. 

I think if you ask most Realtors what they like about the business, you’ll hear over and over again that they like helping people.  They love the new friends they make and the opportunity to be of assistance in a way that really matters.  They find real estate to be sexy and they get off on assisting and being involved in life-changing events and decisions. 

Good luck to the Scoble’s in their move!

As many have noted, the competition from new real estate business models have caused traditional firms to spend more money on technology. Coldwell Banker Bain has announced a new search powered by Microsoft mapping technology, similar to the one John L. Scott brought out a few weeks ago. However, the CBBA new Interactive HomeSearch does have a few subtle advantages over the JLS mapping system.

The primary difference to the buyer or seller is that the CBBA search is more localized. That is, the user can drill in and find homes at the neighborhood level more quickly.

Other advantages include:

- ability to locate Houseboat properties
- search by levels (i.e. single story v.s. two story)
- ability to search for lots/land with specific features including gas, electric, sewer, water
- search for properties with a garage (1,2,3 or 4 car)
- easier to save searches

MS Virtual Earth Maps will become the standard and consumer adoption of the interface will be high. Currently Windermere does not have this technology, but I’m sure is racing to develop it as I write.

But just because we CAN do something, does that mean we should? This mapping system is neat. It’s cool. It’s crazy addictive. But is it ultimately any better than a list of homes for sale in a specific neighborhood? Or is it just a real estate geek’s wet dream? The people who seem most enamored of this kind of search are young techie geeks, raised on video games with a joy stick in one hand and oh, I dunno, a mouse? A Coke? Well, maybe something else, in the other.

Is this technology going to make my life or job any easier? Or is it just a whiz-bang technological novelty? Personally, I find it exhausting to try to find properties that way. I just pray that the MLS doesn’t do something stupid and reduce our search software to interactive map searches.

So, anyway, what else does the new CBBA search do?

1. See neighborhoods in 3D. With a 360° Bird’s Eye View, properties can be viewed from various angles using high resolution aerial photography. This offers clients a 3D perspective that can’t be seen in flat, overhead views.

2. Research lot size

3. View layout of surrounding neighborhoods

4. Zoom in or out to see nearby developing areas

5. See a home’s specific architectural style or type of roof

6. Targeted search. Additional search criteria helps find the homes that fit unique needs. Whether someone wants a farm, houseboat, waterfront property, or precise details such as levels, utilities, or year built, these search options are available on CBBain.com.

7. Automated search. One can use the new Interactive HomeSearch to narrow searches and then sign up with My Home Planner to receive emails with listings that meet individual needs.

8. Compare prices of active and sold listings. Compare prices of 10 similar sold homes in specific areas that match your criteria.

So, what’s the next step here in this progression of mapping searches? The National Association of Realtors says that approximately $12 billion dollars in the U.S. is spent annually on real estate marketing and advertising. About $2 billion will be going to internet and marketing online, and the other $10 billion on newspaper and classified ads and the like. If so many people are using the internet to find out about real estate, why do these companies continue to pour money into newspaper and magazine ads?

I’m guessing it’s because they still work. Buyers still check the Sunday paper for Open Houses. We put ‘em there, they look for them there. You can’t read your computer while having a latte at Starbucks on Sunday morning, but you can easily pick up the Sunday Times….. This may change, but for now, the Sunday newspaper is still the place to be.

What is this? Here is a new listing in the Montlake neighborhood. It’s a lovely home, 4BR/2Bths, 3000+ sq. ft. for $889K. The owner of record is indicated as “Prudential Relocation“.

But the listing agents? Brad and Kim Knowles with Windermere.

Why didn’t Prudential Relocation list with Prudential Real Estate instead of a competitor? Perhaps a few phone calls will unravel the mystery. Stay tuned…

Andre-Francois Raffray, a lawyer from Arles, France, thought he had made the deal of a lifetime. In 1965, he signed a contract with Jeanne Calment, then 90 years old, giving her $500 a month for life on condition that she leave him her house when she died. On Christmas, Raffray died at 77, shortly after Calment became the world’s oldest known living person — she’ll be 121 in February. “We all make bad deals in life,” Raffray said on Calment’s 120th birthday. He paid her over $180,000 in the deal; the house is worth about $60,000. (Reuters) …Getting to beat a lawyer would give anyone a strong reason to live.

Jeanne Calment, world’s oldest woman

Wow Zone

Dustin and Anna Luther over at Rain City Guide have listed their cute Ballard Bungalow with L.T.D. Real Estate for $495,000 and has augmented the typical marketing with listings on Googlebase and Craigslist (so far free, but charging NY brokers $10 a listing — still about 10 x less than the local newspaper.) Rain City Guide

Zillow gave the P.I. real estate blog I moderate a nice nod of recognition today. They mentioned that we’ve moved to first place lately on the PubSub list… that’s cool.

Rich Barton, the CEO of Zillow has finally put his Madison Park home on the market. He alluded to this earlier in the month, and there was speculation he might list with John L. Scott. I’m happy to report that he listed his home with Gordon Stephenson, Managing Broker with Real Property Associates and on the Board of Directors with Zillow. Well done, and good luck on the sale!

Redfin announced their first entry into their Hall of Shame, CBBA’s own Ron Waxman. I’m sorry to report I did NOT make this list. But I’ll try harder and hope to see my smiling face there sometime soon!

Other items of note:

Future of Real Estate Marketing has some great interviews from reps of Real Estate 2.0 sites.

NAR’s response to the Consumer Federation of America’s “The Brokerage Cartel”

The Tim over at the Seattle Bubble is chatting about the Seattle PI’s real estate blog too….

There was a big condo preview event for Paul Allen’s South Lake Union development yesterday. Allen’s crack team of real estate and financial minions over at Vulcan are planning on building 3000 units over the next 10 years in dozens of buildings spread out over the 60 acres they own in the area located between downtown and Lake Union.

The 4 big buildings they’re pushing right now are Rollin Street Flats, Enso, Veer Lofts and The Martin. There are hundreds of units set to hit the market in the next two years, priced from $200K to penthouses over $1 million.

Who did they hire to market the properties? Did they turn to their own in-house staff of real estate professionals to sell the units? Did they choose to use an online auction? Did they pick Redfin, one of the recipients of Vulcan’s venture capital dough?

No. They chose uber-traditional real estate firm, John L. Scott to sell their properties.

Does the left hand not know what the right hand is doing? Is this a case of indifference, ignorance, actions at cross-purposes or just hedging their bets?

I understand that Vulcan Capital and Vulcan Real Estate are two separate departments, but it appears that Lance Conn, the executive who oversees Vulcan Capital and Ada Healy, the woman in charge of Real Estate Development, work in the same office under Paul Allen. It seems odd that just 3 weeks earlier Vulcan gave Redfin $8 million dollars for their real estate start-up, yet, when it comes to selling their own property, bypassed Redfin in order to hire a traditional bricks-and-mortar real estate firm.

This irony was not lost on the real estate agents I spoke to at the event, nor on the Vulcan staff I spoke to on Saturday.

When asked about the motive behind their decision, several agents and Vulcan staff I spoke to said that Vulcan management didn’t want to take a chance when selling their own property and wanted to hire a traditional firm they knew was up to the job, with a good marketing plan and a history of past success. Though they supposedly could have just marketed all of the units online through a link or page on the Redfin site, several agents from several different firms doubted whether enough Buyers would be willing to purchase homes that way.

As it stands, Redfin has had only 25 closed sales in 2006 (despite media reports of 40 sales) and only 4 of its listings have sold and closed in the same period. When Glenn Kelman bought his own home last year he said he enjoyed looking at the Redfin website, but made his own offer through Windermere.

The condos at South Lake Union will be sold through a lottery process where Buyers will be required to respond within 8 hours to decide whether or not they’ll proceed with the sale. You can view the process and timeline here when it becomes available: Discover SLU

More South Lake Union condo info:

Rollins Street

The Martin

The Veer Lofts

The Enso

More Redfin chatter:

Investing in Redfin by Steve Hall

Redfin is in the house by Peter Cochran

The Future of Real Estate Marketing

Redfin Redux

Bill Gates has stepped down as chief software architect at Microsoft Corp. and will slowly transition out of the company’s day-to-day work by 2008. Gates said he “will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” officials at Redmond’s Microsoft said in a statement. He’ll remain as the company’s chairman and as adviser after June 2008. Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie has been named chief software architect and will “begin working side by side” with Gates on the Redmond company’s technical architecture “to ensure a smooth transition,” the company said.

This doesn’t have much to do with real estate, but it’s interesting that he waited until after the stock market had closed for the day to make his announcement. I wonder what effect, if any, this will have on the price of MS shares. There’s bound to be lots of chatter.

There’s still plenty of chatter and gossip about Bill’s house that he built a few years ago. When he makes his transition, will he begin to work at home? I wonder what will happen to that place once he’s gone. Will his kids keep it? Will it become a museum?

Photos of Bill’s house from the water.

Interview with Jim Cutler, the designer of Bill & Melinda’s house.

Like looking at waterfront mega-mansions? Slate’s interactive cyber-mansion tour

Bill Gate’s House Tidbits

Bill’s house from a satelite way up in the sky…..

Entertain the kids! Paper model toy of Bill’s house.

The winning entry in the Cradle to Cradle C2C Home Competition is an incredible single family dwelling that runs on a spinach. It utilizes a protein with a super-conductive photosynthetic plasma cell skin that is able to generate 200% more electrical voltage per area than contemporary photovoltaics.

Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It is collected and returned. This design utilizes timeless passive solar strategies by shielding unwanted summer sun and absorbing heat from low winter sun through its thermal mass. Active solar collection provides the main source of necessary electrical energy. Building on current research involving extracted spinach protein, this living skin is photosynthetic and phototropic it grows and follows the path of the sun, generating electricity in excess of single family needs. excess power is distributed to neighboring homes and street lighting infrastructure.

Cradle to cradle

U.S. Green Building Council

Green Building from the Environmental Protection Agency

Green Building Celebrities

Mick Jagger buys a second home on Mustique for $3.9 million dollars. You can get more details and see photos here.

Martin Scorsese sells his Upper East Side townhouse in NY for $6.7 million. It’s a little stuffy for me….. Photos and details here.

The LA Times reported that Pamela Anderson liked the beach so much that in 2000 she rented a home in Malibu for $16,000 a month. In early 2001, she bought a house there. Now, she has the itch to move again. She listed her 2,300-square-foot home, in gated Malibu Colony, at $6.5 million.

Montgomery Clift’s New York Apartment is up for sale.

I’m embarrassed for even caring.

Gee, I can’t miss this….

Naked Bike Ride/Seattle

There is a great conversation going on over at RainCityGuide today. 37 comments and counting on Dustin Luther’s “Paying for the Privilege of Marginalization“. He’s right-on, as usual, and discussing a topic I find fascinating.

His premise is that real estate agents and brokers are foolish to continue to support industries that are planning to horn in on and destroy traditional real estate firms. New business models such as Craigslist and Google present a competition for brokers advertising dollars, but so do old-school newspapers . I wrote about Tribune Interactive recently purchasing ForSaleByOwner.com, and can extrapolate that move out to it’s logical end run of direct competition to the traditional real estate model. I can see where this is going and I completely agree with his post.

Dustin feels that it is ironic that I am moderating a real estate blog for the Seattle P.I. newspaper, as I am creating content for what could turn out to be my competitor. I completely agree, it is ironic.

However, the newspapers already accept ads from my competitors (my competitors being anyone who isn’t actually me!) and I even blog with a few of those competitors. If it gets obvious, obnoxious or self-defeating, I’ll quit.

There’s something else I find ironic. It’s ironic that an employee of Move.com, owner of Realtor.com (the official site of the National Association of Realtors) is selling their home without using a Realtor. Wasn’t there a guy who worked for Miller Distributing who was fired for drinking a Bud Light? There was also a guy who worked for Coca-Cola who was supposedly fired for drinking a Pepsi.

Dustin has a big ol’ list of how he’s going to sell his home himself, without listing it for sale, by a Realtor, on the NWMLS. One thing he is going to do is purchase an enhanced listing on Realtor.com.

His home is For Sale by Owner. But he can advertise it on Realtor.com. So the official website of the National Association of Realtors is now accepting “For Sale by Owner” ads?

Dustin, I love ya, Baby. But that is ironic!

Greg Sterling of the Kelsey Group (stategic research services for directories and media) writes a real estate vertical search overview for Search Engine Watch. It’s mostly common information, but what’s interesting is that so many outside players are finally sitting up and taking notice of the competition and advances in the real estate search sector.

People call all the time asking for real estate advice. Generally, I’m glad to give it (you get what you pay for….) What if I could charge money to answer those real estate questions? $3 a minute? How about a price opinion? $100?

Ether lets you earn money selling what you say. You get a free phone number and you set your rate. Your phone only rings when people want to talk to you……

The Real Estate Rap Song