The Real Estate Conversation

A Real Estate Market is social. Buyers and Sellers communicate to discover information and negotiate to exchange goods or services. From this I understand the Real Estate Market as a Real Estate Conversation.

Internet transparency is letting home buyers view Residential and Commercial MLS, FSBO listings on their own. It has reduced home buyers search costs, and given them access to multiple new product options to choose from when going into a real estate transaction. Also sellers have found new tools and services to attract home buyers and sell their houses, they can now leverage Internet market tools that are intended to increase the efficacy of transactional requirements.

This "conversation" transparency has made it difficult for Real Estate Agents, Appraisers, Lenders, etc. to collect the fees - tipping the balance of power towards the consumers. By opening access to information outside of the Brokers/Lawyers control, buyers and sellers now gain economic benefits that would be otherwise be received by market intermediaries or inappropriately distributed among the smart and connected deal makers of the financial world.

update: I added this to Wikipedia - *Still in progress.

Related: The Real Estate King Takes A Gabby Queen
InmanTV Video

Elvis "The King" Presley's Birthday

Elvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935 in a two-room shotgun house in Tupelo, Mississippi. Vernon Presley, Elvis's father, built the house with the help of his father and his older brother in preparation for the birth. He took out what amounted to a mortgage of $180 from Orville Bean, on whose farm Vernan and his father occasionally worked. The birthplace has been designated a Mississippi landmark.

Elvis would have been 72 years old today.

Elvis was the KING of Rock N' Roll, is the King of Stamps, and its a bit of a s-t-r-e-t-c-h but unconsciously an icon of Internet culture with his understanding of Social Networking when he said, "We can't go on together - With suspicious minds.."

Think of trust as the currency of social capital.
PlaNetwork

The Realtor As A Wing Man

Will Smith acts as a dating coach in the 2005 movie Hitch. Who, for a fee, helps men woo the women of their dreams. This service style of a coach is nothing new to the Realtor/Client relationship and it looks to be growing in popularity with consumers. So as a consumer how do you make sure that your unique needs are going to be served? What role will you play in the processes of searching for a home, negotiating the transaction, getting financing, or handle the transfer of ownership, etc.?

As Galen Ward of Seattle's Rain City Guide explains:

We are leaving the time of the agent-"leads"-consumer model in the real estate industry and we are entering the time of the agent-"coaches"-consumer model.

If your getting ready to sell or buy real estate - here are some things you should think about before taking the next step. Remember, a good coach will provide the client with the necessary support and structure needed to help realize the participants dreams.

• Define the Communication Performance: Make sure that an expected Turn Around time is understood. Ask great questions and explain your decision-making strategies.
  
• Define Team Strategies: Alerts of new homes on the market, Neighborhood and community information for properties you find on or off the MLS, Advice while working with transaction service partners (lenders, appraisers, lawyers, escrow, fees), Access to property walk-through times/lockbox access.
  
• Talk About Barriers to Performance: Set expected availability hours, Emergency contact availability
  
• Manage each others emotional state while working together - close to the purchase agreement you might start lacking sleep. Make sure to use respect in all situations.
  
• Mentor: Work with a Realtor that can lead or coach by experience.
  

A seasoned real estate professional might be the ever so valuable "wing" on your team to help catch the home or homebuyer that you're looking for!. Bonus: Teaching you how to do it yourself along the way ~!.

Realtor Conference Hot Topic

Maria Patterson from RISMEDIA writes an interresting article that centers the debated hot topic of the 'Realtor and Consumer' relationship.

The news article contains quotes from the California Association of Realtors Conference in Long Beach, California from President and Co-founder of Zillow, Lloyd Frink. Also former CEO of REALTOR.com Allan Dalton, now President of Move.com's real estate division. Dalton, explains that sites like Zillow’s are undermining the Realtor’s true value proposition by classifying them as “service providers.”

“Zillow cannot marginalize Realtors ... and their value proposition,” Dalton added. “... If the industry allows the collective advocation of a company like Zillow to commoditize real estate to the degree that consumers believe the value of a home can actually be preordained before the value that a Realtor can add (in terms of marketing, negotiating, staging and networking), then what we will be left with is an injured consumer who believes that..."

A business relationship of service in my opinion should be customer-centric and recognize that the balance of power is toward the customer paying for representation. As a result, the Realtor and the Consumer needs to identify what is of value to them.

The Cats Out Of The Bag

As the saying goes - once you let the cat out of the bag, it goes wherever it wants. To this point, click over to read Greg Swann's blog about "the home-buyer’s place at the table". The essay details ideas for homebuyers and Realtors to adopt when working together as a team. The basic theme is telling the homebuyer to be aware of costs in a transaction and always ask “How much do you charge?”.

Among other suggestions and ideas Greg makes mention of a “secret” field displayed in some MLS systems. Telling his readers that "listings you find on Realtor web sites or on Realtor.com" do not detail the co-broke / commision field — it is kept concealed.

Why is the co-broke field kept concealed from the homebuyer view in MLS systems? Overly restrictive? Pro-competitive? Anticompetitive?

What would change if the homebuyer was able to view the "secret" fields that some MLS systems keep concealed?

compensation for buyer representation