360Digest

Seattle real estate agent Sarina McDonald aka “Ravenna Black” stars in this week’s episode of the ABC reality show “Wife Swap”. The show takes two women — whose families have vastly different values — and asks them to switch places for two weeks. Each episode documents the drama that results when the husband and the kids are forced to adjust to a new matriarch in the family.

For this show, Sarina went to upstate New York to live with the Robarge family. They are involved in lumberjack competitions, and their family’s activities revolve around husband Wally’s professional lumberjack competitions, where the McDonalds’ lives revolve around Sarina’s trips around the country to burlesque events.

Sarina saw this as a great opportunity to highlight some of the charity work she does with The Pin-Up Angels.

Do you love this girl or what?

Wife Swap - Wednesday, January 30th at 8pm PST on ABC.

Agent fired for extra-curricular activities

Ravenna Speaks!

Real Estate and Sexual Politics

Ubertor gets some love on TechCrunch.com

Avi Wilensky interviews Craig Newmark on Online Real Estate

This guy’s back, after a months-long hiatus, with his predictions for 2008

Eric Bramlett got some grief for publishing the Top 10 Worst Realtor Photos and had to yank them. Too bad, it was funny.

It’s revealed that Redfin is starting to issue stock in the company, in this tale of an intern’s stint at Redfin and subsequent decision to leave.

5 things for bloggers to do before dying

With some likening the MLS to a public utility and other clamouring to set the listings free, a lesson may be learned from the Yellow Pages new deal with Google.

Yellow Pages contemplating suicide by SEO

It costs millions to renovate a decent love hotel. Patrons want the latest in love hotel accoutrements and decor. It’s expensive. All well and good in the roaring 80s when credit flowed like water, but not today. That’s when niche funds like MHS Capital Partners, an offshore private equity firm, and Tokyo’s Global Financial Support Co. (GFS) investment group come in and securitize them. At 8.4 percent annual returns, pink real estate funds are arousing interest in individual and institutional investors alike. Property managers can now update their facilities to attract even more business in what is generally recognized to be a recession-proof industry.

Sexy Pink Real Estate Funds

So, the big news in our neck of the woods from Rain City Guide is Russ Cofano has taken a position with John L. Scott Real Estate as Vice President and General Counsel.

Russ was the long time counsel to the Washington Associationof REALTORS and played a crucial role in significant events impacting the Washington real estate industry. He wrote for Rain City Guide and was also a contributor to the real estate blog that I moderate for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

One of the most interesting things about this announcement is where Russ is going and who he is replacing.

It’s old news here, but for those who haven’t seen it, “Real Estate Alert”
Fraudulant Concealment Verdict Against John L. Scott Upheld by Washington Suprene Court makes for interesting reading.

Can you afford to do business with John L. Scott Real Estate?
If you are entitled to your earnest money back will John L. Scott Real Estate give it back?

If there is a known defect on the property listed or sold by a John L. Scott agent will they tell you about it?

The details of the case are interesting, but so is the result and the way this embittered home buyer took on a formidable company and a more formidable real estate attorney with a reputation for never settling a case.

Haven’t we all fantasized about taking revenge on a company in this way? Who hasn’t imagined the letters we’re going to write to the president of the airlines, as soon as we get off the flight? But instead of just daydreaming, this guy went the whole 9 yards.

The buyer not only took John L Scott to court and won, he also created websites, wrote letters to the editor, picketed outside their offices and handed out flyers at John L. Scott open houses on Sunday. And after he won, he just kept on rattling their cage, trying to list his property on the local MLS, but trying to get his broker to agree to boycott John L. Scott and refuse to let them show his property and pay them a commission.

For years, John L. Scott had an attorney with a reputation of never settling if they could go to court instead.

For an amazing character study of the company and their General Councel, read

Buyer Beware:
For a real estate company as successful as John L. Scott, it sure gets sued a lot

Russ Cofano has some pretty big shoes to fill, but I imagine he’s no push-over himself.

Good luck, Russ!

Home buyer wins suit against John L. Scott
Supreme Court awards him punitive damages and attorneys’ fees

Zillow announced an upgrade to their site a few days ago, one which increases the number of homes with Zestimates and also significantly changes their models and algorithms to attempt to give a better ultimate home value.

The new algorithm takes into account owner and agent-edited facts that have been made by their community of users.

Since everyone’s daughter is the prettiest girl at the prom, I’m sure it will be difficult for some homeowners to hold themselves back from gushing all over themselves and their granite countertops.

And what effect could this have on a home’s valuation? Artificially pumping up the value is one side-effect. And altering the tax structure of a particular home, or even a neighborhood is another.

In our county, the tax assessor’s office estimates a value based on neighborhood metrics and past sales. Most assessors have never set foot on to the property.

“Posting home-improvement information on Zillow would effectively let the assessor in your front door to discover such goodies like granite countertops, premium appliances, marble baths and other improvement” says David Ruble, a principal at Olympic Consulting Group in an article by John Cook in “New Zillow service triggers a tax alarm: Aid to valuations — and assessors?”

King County Assessor Scott Noble has indicated that his office may employ the Zillow service and could be used as a tool to make sure that homeowners are paying their “fair share.”

“If the particular individual is doing a major remodel off the books, sure we will utilize every tool to pick up those changes because it is only fair to spread the burden among all,” he said.

We had an interesting case here several years ago, way before Zillow, and it involved a very high-profile real estate developer who had appeared on the TV show “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” (See $25K In Taxes? On This Dump? by Jean Godden, Seattle Times).

The owner, being interviewed by the shows host, showed off the handsome 17th-floor penthouse atop Market Place Tower, 2033 First Ave. Included on the program was footage of a spectacular 50-foot pool that cascades over the building. Asked by “Lifestyles” what he’d take for the place with its lofty ceilings, marble floors and unobstructed views of the city and Puget Sound, the owner mentioned a price of $4.75 million.

Nothing wrong with that, however, those same owners had just filed an appeal with the King County Board of Equalization to lower the valuation of the condo. The Assessor, looking at comparable sales, figured the place was worth $2,358,400. The owner, in his appeal to the County Assessor, maintained it was only worth $839,000.

But the Assessor’s office obtained a tape of the “Lifestyles” program and argued against lowering the assessment. Case closed.

It’s only common sense to assume that the local taxing authority will check Zillow prior to any tax appeal and prudent homeowners will take pains to make sure their home looks as homely as possible, perhaps even altering facts to make their home appear less valuable.

This is perhaps the opposite effect of what most people would think would happen, but it’s a definite possibility.

MySpace for your home

“Make News”

As fascinating as an ant-farm

While most agents would consider the punk house a nightmare, but there is often artistry and beauty to these kind of squats that I enjoy.

I’ve only seen a few hit the market “as-is”, as most get cleaned up prior to listing. I like the idea of communal living, and did it myself for awhile during my pre-and-post college years, though we were never in one place long enough to amass the kind of squalor and filth pictured in the book “Punk House: Interiors in Anarchy”.

With the ones that I’ve listed, there is usually so much art on the walls, if we can clean them up, we can usually sell it to another artist.

Punk House features anarchist warehouses, feminist collectives, tree houses, workshops, artists’ studios, self-sufficient farms, hobo squats, community centers, basement bike shops, speakeasies, and all varieties of communal living spaces.

In over 300 images of fifty houses in twenty-five cities in the US, photographer Abby Banks finds the already weathered face of a seventeen-year-old runaway; the soft hands of a vinyl junkie (record collector); the mohawked show-goer; the dirty dishes in the sink; silk screened posters on the wall; and many other revealing glimpses of these anarchist interiors.

“Punk House” in New York Times

Where Lou Reed Peed: CBGB’s toilet

Redfin Real Estate Scientists are a No-Show

RisMedia notes How Graceland Celebrates the King’s Birthday.

Become a member of Elvis Candlelight and promote a greater understanding of Spirit through the example and spiritual seeking of Elvis Presley during his life time, and his continuing presence in the world.

There are many ETA’s (Elvis Tribute Artists) but few PTA’s in the U.S.

Marlow/Priscilla at the Elvis Invitationals

Other agents and real estate folks love Elvis too….

Elvis Real Estate

Elvis Birthday Events at Graceland

Elvis Vogrin, Re-Max Agent

Boston real estate agent, Elvis Doda
Elvis Turkovich, Aspen Realty

Elvis Chin, Singapore Real Estate

Zillow loves Elvis

Traffic Power, the search engine optimization company, had already earned a notorious reputation of employing “black hat” methods, and had been banned by Yahoo, Google and several other search engines. Now as this KVBC.com story reveals that the CEO of Traffic Power, Matt Marlon is accused being a foreclosure scam con artist. Reportedly some sixty homeowners believed that Marlon could help them from foreclosure. Although he never paid off the mortgage or purchase the homes, would get the real owners out of the houses on some pretext or the other and then rent the houses to tenants and then pocket the money, never assisting the homeowners.

At least sixty valley homeowners thought Marlon could help them. He offered to save them from foreclosure. “He would locate victims by doing a search of the public records on the Recorder’s Office (website) for notice of default that are recorded then contact the victims saying he was interested in purchasing your home,” Ellsworth explains.

“He’d come to the house with a notary in tow,” Ellsworth continues. “He’d give them documents saying he’d take care of everything. Take care of the payment, take care of paying off the mortgage and I’ll pay you some cash too. He’d have them sign a contract of sale.”

Despite how official the forms signed by the homeowners might look, Marlon didn’t really buy the house and he didn’t pay off the mortgage. “After he would get the rightful owners out of the house under false pretenses, he would put renters in the houses in many cases. And those people… my investigators talked to one renter who felt they were leasing to own,” Ellsworth said.

And he wasn’t just hurting homeowners. He actually scammed the Recorder’s Office. Anytime property is transferred from one buyer to another, there is a transfer tax of $2.50 per $500 of value. Investigators say Marlon never paid that tax. He used fake stock certificates to show the sales were exempt from the transfer tax.

Traffic Power Sucks

Matt Cutts confirms Google penalty

Simpson’s Quotes

Simpson’s Punk Rock

The Simpson’s perform Shakespeare

Last exit to Springfield