- NEWS
- Capo trustees: No decision on suing county yet 19 minutes ago
- Man delivers his complaint in a song 1 hour & 8 minutes ago
- Christmas tree removed from courthouse 56 minutes ago
- 5 sent to hospital in double-decker bus collision 49 minutes ago
- SPORTS
- O.C. players make an impact in NFL 2 hours & 1 minute ago
- Hudler, Physioc let go by Fox 1 hour & 15 minutes ago
- USC football: 10 reasons why it went wrong 1 hour & 15 minutes ago
- What pitcher should Angels deal for Halladay? 48 minutes ago
- BUSINESS
- ENTERTAINMENT
- Who will win 'Dancing With The Stars'? 1 hour & 14 minutes ago
- Rattle, Berlin Phil awash in Brahms 2 hours & 4 minutes ago
- Jim Gaffigan brings his new act to O.C.
- 'Little Women' well performed in Anaheim
- LIFE
- TRAVEL
- OPINION
Online information rocking housing world
June 13th, 2009, 12:01 am · 55 Comments · posted by Jon Lansner
The business of selling homes isn’t just being rocked by economic forces. The Internet is changing how consumers are acquiring real estate information and shopping for housing. Insider Q&A decided to ask Orange County entrepreneur Greg Robertson of the new Dwellicious.com — a site that helps users track various online housing information streams — how he sees this revolution evolving …
Us: How big is online shopping for real estate?
Greg: Big and getting bigger. According to studies conducted by the National Association of Realtors, over 84% of all home buyers begin their search online. That’s a huge number and growing, the stat is closer to 90% when you are talking about first time home buyers. Also, according to Realtor.com, the current leader in homes for sale on the web; Compared to March 2009, their total number of visitors, on Realtor.com, in April surged by 123 percent to 11.3 million, while April 2009 year-over-year growth in traffic reached 104 percent.
Us: Does the real estate industry really understand what’s happening?
Greg: Like any industry you have a group of people who embrace change and others that do not. In the past the agents were the gatekeepers of MLS (homes for sale) data; consumers had to pass through them for access. Now, listing information is everywhere. Smarter agents realize this, and are coming up with new ways to engage today’s consumers and increase their overall value proposition.
[ More on real estate and online networking HERE!]
Us: Will real estate become like airline tickets, where the “agents” were replaced by online algorithms??
Greg: There are two ways of looking at it. On one side, I don’t think agents will ever go away. Buying or selling your house is likely to be the largest financial transaction of your life. A good agent provides you the advice and know how to guide you through that process. On the other side of the coin, you have companies like Zillow, Trulia, Redfin and Zip Realty realty who don’t come from the “traditional” way of doing things that are really changing the game. So I don’t think that agents will go away, but new models, created outside the traditional industry, will force things to change.
Us: OK. So you got this site that combines many online tools so I might sanely shop online for a house? And it’s free for us consumers! Dare I ask … “How do you plan to make money?”
Greg: Great question, and one I get a lot. Especially from my wife! Any consumer can visit the site and sign up for a free account at Dwellicious.com. We also have a professional version of the application called Dwellicious Pro, which we sell on a monthly subscription basis, to real estate professionals. We have short videos on each site to give you an idea of what provided with each service.
Other Insider Q&As:
55 Comments
-
ADVERTISEMENT
-
-
Blog within a blog ...
-
HOW TO TRACK US
<!--
--> -
ADVERTISEMENT
Realtors are like payphones. What are payphones? Exactly.
Old time Realtors are like newsPAPERs. Has anyone picked-up a printed newspaper recently?
I bet we can come up with dozens of great analogies :)
PS I saw an old man in a coffee shop reading an old fashioned newspaper the other day… It actually looked weird! LOL
You know nothing about real estate.
They all knew enough about real estate to know better than to buy at the top like you did multiple times.
Give it up already.
We all know you’re a fraud!
Haha… I was a Realtor, so you don’t know me. All I’m saying is the business model is changing. I also worked for the YellowPages, and the owner used to say not to worry about the Internet, the yellow pages will be around for ever - he was wrong too.
I get the paper every Sat and Sun. I also buy books and read those dinosaurs as well. Let’s see. I make my own ice cream at times…hang certain items to dry despite the major convenience of an electric dryer…still listen to CD’s and not just my ipod…still write hand written notes which mean so much more these days over an electronic email…wash the car by hand…like charcoal over gas grills…and countless other “relic” ways of doing things.
The reason travel agents were replaced is the same EXACT service was offered at your fingertips. Buying an airline ticket and booking a hotel room does not require much assistance and more importantly, it is not any work whatsoever. Buying a home is full of work. Many people will always appreciate the services of a full service brokerage over a self service one. Good thing there are 13,000,000 people in our general vicinity. Enough to go around for those who wish to work at it.
Oooh, here’s one:
Realtors are like the YellowPages.
Someday, you’re going to say “YellowPages” (in some context), and some young person will say, “YellowWhat???”
I wish Greg good luck in his new venture… He’s right that old industries are being transformed. I’ve got to come up with a good idea!
Consumer sales in general will be phased out with new efficiencies and a new dominant generation who places zero value in what people like dealeo offer…… that’s well, nearly everyone…
You don’t even know what it is that I do. What the hell is it that you do that is so essential to the universe?
Yep, and Rosie will bring your slippers after you arrive in your jetpack!!!!hahahaha
damn you realtors are even dumber than you look
i’m not even talking only real estate
if you can’t see this happening
you also probably couldn’t see the housing bubble….
…. oh wait…. never mind
tsk tsk mav. just ’cause your “vision” is miopic and basically, well, …………wrong, don’t take it out on your pals here on the hate, I mean RE blog. I liked it better when you used to answer with Dylan song lyrics (that’s your cue….)
Oh, and please don’t use “The Times, They are a’changin’…. that would be too obvious. think harder, please
VOR, what is so hard to understand
the market for realtors has shrunk…
and will continue to shrink……
most of the shrinkage thus far is due to the housing bubble…
…. but in the future there will be further declines…
.. due to technology efficiencies….
.. you think today’s 19 year old will need to buy a house with a realtor…
.. and have any aversion to a new model, with greater efficiency over the internet…. hell no….. move on…. accept reality….
Good lord, what a puff piece. Why wasn’t he asked the specifics of how a “website” actually performs the necessary tasks? All I see is that information in online. That’s not exactly new, every real estate firm in the US is online. What tasks can they perform and what do they expect in the way of compensation for those tasks. That is the only question worth asking.
How funny that Dwellicous hasn’t figured out how they will make money. Neither have any of the other sites he mentions!
Youtube still hasn’t figured out how to make money. That doesn’t mean the service don’t work. You are pathetic with your excuses and will soon be out of a job like a dinosaur.
Yeah, services that don’t work are a really big threat.
My first job was on an equity options trading desk. Back then the commission on 20 contracts priced at $100 dollars each was between $200 and $300. Today the same trade on the web cost about 10 bucks.
How much longer will someone selling a 500k house feel like shelling out 30K to a RE broker?
Trulia:
“How We Make Money: We make money through advertising, not lead generation.”
“What We Aren’t: We ARE NOT brokers or agents.”
Zillow:
“How does Zillow make money? Simply, we make money by selling advertising on our site. “
“Consumers have asked to be empowered with real estate information and data and we have provided it. But, that doesn’t mean real estate professionals have less of a role. Rather, they are just as critical in the home transaction process as ever.”
Zip Realty:
“Our Services
Our neighborhood ZipAGENTS have years of experience in the areas they serve and are active members of their local, state and national real estate and MLS associations”
“Why Sign Up? We give you 20% of our commission When you buy a home with us, you will receive 20% of the commission we are paid by the seller upon closing.*
Redfin:
“A Better Website and A Better AGENT
Redfin is a real estate brokerage like Century 21, but online like E-Trade.”
“The Fine Print
For direct service from our own AGENTS, our minimum fee is $5,500.”
If any real estate professionals are interested in seeing Dwellicious, I’ll be giving 2 demos at the Newport Beach Association this Thursday, the 18th. The first demo is at 10AM and the second is at 1PM. Just email to confirm you want to attend: rsvp at Dwellicious dot com.
Dealeo will be arguing on this blog for the rest of his life.
He will continue to pray endlessly that we will return to bubble prices.
He doesn’t know that in past smaller recessions it took over 7 years to start a rebound in housing and that prior recessions didn’t include millions of $600,000 liar loans that involved a multi- trillion dollar Wall Street Ponzi scheme.
U.S. household wealth fell by $1.3 trillion in the first quarter and $4.9 trillion the previous quarter.
A record amount of people are draining their 401k and savings just to make their monthly mortgage payments. (Unsustainable)
State Controller John Chiang is warning the governor and legislators that the state will run out of cash by July 28. And Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is telling legislators that he would allow a government shutdown.
Here we stand more than a year into a grave economic crisis with a projected budget deficit of 13% of GDP.
That’s more than twice the size of the next largest deficit since World War II.
And this projected deficit is the culmination of a year when the federal government, at taxpayers’ expense, acquired enormous stakes in the banking, auto, mortgage, health-care and insurance industries.
With the crisis, the ill-conceived government reactions, and the ensuing economic downturn, the unfunded liabilities of federal programs (Social Security, civil-service and military pensions, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, Medicare and Medicaid) are over the $100 trillion mark.
With U.S. GDP and federal tax receipts at about $14 trillion and $2.4 trillion respectively, such a debt all but guarantees higher interest rates, massive tax increases, and partial default on government promises.
We can expect rapidly rising prices and much, much higher interest rates over the next four or five years, and a concomitant deleterious impact on employment.
And we can expect personal attacks from yourself towards anyone in this industry. Prejudice?
Mulli,
I don’t attack anyone speaking the truth.
You should know that.
It was un-American of you to run our country into the ground so that you and your buddies could make a commission.
Even after the terrible ruins you left this country in, you and dealeo (if not the same person) still have the nerve to continue spewing your pre-bubble propaganda in here, like our country’s financial meltdown never even fazed you one bit.
You just don’t give a Sh*t about anyone but yourself, do you?
“It was un-American of you to run our country into the ground so that you and your buddies could make a commission.” That is an attack without foundation. Are you truly so dimwitted that you think Realtors are to blame here? Really? Agents did not lend money to anyone alive. Banks did. Agents did not louse up the credit default swaps…big banks and Wall St. did. Your venom is completely misguided. The paperwork pushers who submitted everything to the entity which held the keys to the kingdom of cash are not your enemies…by your logic, the Army is at fault for the President’s decision to go to war…any war, pick one.
I have never lied on these pages…I have never had an agenda. You know I am not dealeo…our writing styles are completely different. I have always stood by the adage that one should buy when they are ready…and if you are not, then do not. Did you miss the Plaza argument with dealeo and myself? We are on completely opposite sides on that misplaced, overpriced, debacle.
Your main psychological malfunction is you lump anyone and everyone that is on this blog that does not pray for the complete and entire financial meltdown of the RE industry as a cause of the effect of the lending boom. Are all muslims terrorists as well since most terrorists are muslim? Wake up William.
I care more about my fellow man that you could possibly fathom. You assume a great deal around here and come across as a bitter old man. Sad really.
I always represented sellers in their projects…and never ever uttered the phrases I see so tirelessly posted here:
“RE never goes down”
“Buy now are be priced out forever”
“Blah Blah Blah”
What childish gibberish. And that you believe such nonsense makes me believe that you are not as sophisticated that I thought you were to be at one time. For “dumb agents” could not possibly bring the country to the point of financial meltdown…leave that to your Ivy league grads running our financial institutions who signed off on loaning the plumber $700,000 on his WORD. Morons. If he did not buy it someone else would have who also made the same salary but was a landscaper instead. Perhaps he was even an engineer…a man you know who just erred in risk taking. Do you honestly believe he is blaming his Realtor like you do? Ha!! He is taking responsibility for his own decisions…like many do here. The bears here continually are looking for a singular scapegoat in a yellow jacket…wake up Billy…the blame game always has 4 fingers pointing back at you.
So Dealeo, even though you claim to have no connection to RE you took fairly time consuming steps to show that realtors aren’t in jeopardy of losing their jobs. How interesting.
Are you dense? When did I say I have “no connection to real estate”? Man, you are a little slow.
Oh, please. Get help. Delusional much?
Not to stick up for Dealeo cause he sounds like a knob, but realtors can do what a website can’t.
When we bought our last house our realtor talked the sellers into selling their house to us even though it wasn’t on the market. The result we got exactly the house we wanted and they retired early.
Moreover, why are the banks not using Redfin, Zillow, etc. on their very own REO’s? I mean, if it is such a tremendous value…I have posed this question many times…each time with no explanation. Now, why would that be?
Ya that’s worth 6%.
Not to you and that is just fine…you have many options. And, follow me here…if the home was not on the market, doubtful the seller paid 6% here. My guess is 3% since the agent found the home unlisted…something an attorney and Redfin just cannot accomplish. More deals get done like this than you would believe.
Here’s the way I see it:
Certain transactions, like those made by our LLC, require the expertise of a lawyer - agents certainly do not have the wherewithal and education to handle the transactions for institutional investors - from handling the purchase, to all the possible tax implications and management of the property itself. The laws surrounding this are quite complex and the tax code is even more complex. There are many ways to handle such purchases.
Transactions made by savvy buyers - well, lets put it this way. I know some buyers and some agents - the capabilities and knowledge level of each are very close. Not hard to surmise given the low level education requirements for getting a license. I have spoken to some agents that had no idea what an HUD-1 is and the legal right of every buyer to see it 24 hours prior to closing - and be able to compare to the truth in lending statement, or section 2 repairs for that matter.
Lenders do not have to disclose that right to buyers. You would think buyer agents would at least try and protect their clients by informing them. I wonder how many buyers reading this were ever informed?
Now uninformed buyers, such as first time and elderly buyers, would be in better shape using someone that at least has had some experience.
The frequent, more seasoned buyers use lawyers - plain and simple.
After many houses and commercial buildings bought and sold, i still feel that most r.e. deals are made despite the salespeoples efforts to screw them up! Most of them are very bad at what they do!!
XTRA XTRA read allll about it— california’s tax receipts plunge
leaving the state in a precarious predicament- that is- theyre broke
the ramifications of this are down-right frightening- I just hope
they dont have to do anything dramatic- like cut the bloated salaries
and pensions of the state workers whos unions have lobbied so
hard to get those cushy salaries and pie in the sky pensions that
are light years beyond the private sector (whos taxes actually pay
for them)– welcome to the real world boys
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE55974820090610
behold the real estate graph from hell–
http://mortgage.freedomblogging.com/2009/06/13/painful-months-ahead-for-housing/11861/chart-foreclosures-and-unem/
after analyzing the graph- I must admit to being wrong on my call
for the return to 1998 prices— this will insure 1992 prices
—-if youre lucky that is
Are you leaving CA soon since life sucks so much here?
And bring on the weath creation…that would be just fine. Assuming that $100 per foot is workable in CA since that is what it costs in TX. But hey, every dip will not last forever…just like every mountain.
Nope Mulli, Rants just hopes that everyone else leaves CA so he can have it all to himself.
I try not to deal in hopes- I prefer facts- cold hard facts- like
the hundreds that I’ve presented to you on this very blog-
a thank you would suffice
rants,
Hang in there with the facts. Those pesky facts seem to drive shockg, mulligrin, and all their alter identities absolutely crazy.
I thought Mulli had given up and gone back to Texas. Those Pacific Hills are sliding, with or without him.
I do not get driven crazy by a one world view…life is bigger than rants makes it out to be. Far bigger…
Revolution in Real Estate Listings starts at: RealestateShot.com.
Shoot the video of your property and list it online for FREE: http://www.realestateshot.com.
Sell, Swap, Trade or Exchange not only residential, but also commercial real estate.Lease it or rent it, find roommates or even showcase it for the whole world to see. Expose your property locally or globally, yet remain anonymous.
How can you guys say all this bad stuff about realtors? Don’t you know about all the hard work that went into getting these licenses? All the years of college, ethics training, internships, passing all those tests? Do you thing they give a RE license to just anyone who can pass just one simple test then turn them loose on the unsuspecting general public, well, do ya? These are highly trained & qualified individuals that deserve your respect ( & 6% of every home you buy). Don’t you agree? What about you dealio, you do don’t you? Please elaborate about your vast knowledge you bring to the table that makes such a difference (6%) to anyone buying a home.
Do you have a Master’s degree like I do, awhole?
do you have another blog where you hang out with your online buddies from U. Phoenix ?
Master Baitor?
The odds you have a Masters in anything other than bulshyt is slim to none. First off, someone with a Masters would be secure enough with themselves and what they had to say here, therefore, not need to announce the fact that they had one. You were seeking validation by suggesting such, as if it would add relevance to your POV presented here.
Unfortunately, from the psychological standpoint, you would have bettered your standing here by not suggesting such, when it is now blatantly clear you dont have a Masters due to the fact that you said you did.
Savvy?
:)
Dealeo,
It’s patently obvious to all you are a Master BS-er to a very high degree.
For you to expect anyone here to believe your claim to a Masters (without attaching the subject) is only indicative of your foolishness.
Give it up and go play somewhere else.
The “move up” market is dead and is likely to stay dead. People do not have enough equity in their house to sell, short sales are hard to come by, and those unwilling to walk away are literally trapped.
The Register is running stories about the great depression compared to today’s recession, but on this blog some jokers/Realtors are talking about how wonderful things are. I guess some gullible fool will believe them.
This from the LA Times (sorry Jon)
http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/news/la-fi-harney14-2009jun14,0,5640861.story
Looks like home buying tax programs are going to be for everybody! Yeah! Thanks taxpayer now I can flip houses using your money!
Estate agent decides ‘honesty’ is the best policy
By JAYA NARAIN Last updated at 21:31 24 November 2006
(Real) Estate agents are often accused of blatant dishonesty for the lavish descriptions of properties they are attempting to sell.
But it is not often an estate agent is accused of lewdness for using near-the-knuckle gags to catch the eye of househunters.
Julian Bending decided brutal honesty and a sense of humour was the best policy when advertising a property for sale.
His pursuit of honesty in his business has seen previous properties branded smelly, ugly, sexy, swanky and butch.
In one description he warned potential customers: ‘Dear God, it’s difficult to imagine a more disgusting house than this.’
But even Mr Bending may have overstepped the mark with his latest description of two properties on the market in Glastonbury, Somerset.
One description for a two bedrooms terraced house at £155,000 reads: ‘All the charm and poise of a vicar on crack. Hall, cloak room, sitting room, kitchen, bathroom, parking and rear courtyard garden. Suit midget on a budget.’
Meanwhile, an elegant cottage is advertised as: ‘An absolute stunner - if this cottage was a woman it would be Denise Van Outen in a rubber suit holding a cold flannel.’ Mr Bending, 40, who has run the estate agents for five years, said his blunt descriptions had proved a big hit with both sellers and buyers who were fed up with misleading information from estate agents.
‘There’s the most incredible strength in honesty,’ he said. ‘If you get called up by an estate agent and they tell you somewhere is lovely and perfect for you and it’s not, they have no trust in you.
‘If people ring us up we say: ‘No it’s horrible, don’t bother’ if it isn’t what they want. People thank us while sellers are also grateful they don’t have to bother with people who aren’t interested.’
A description for a one bedroom home reads: ‘My personal favorite. Delicious as a small bun sprinkled with sugar on the top this place fair glistens with delight. It’s smooth and silky with a contempory twist but still holds fast to an ancient value. A must see and cracking investment.’
In the five years Mr Bending has been taking this unconventional approach, the company has only received two complaints.
Both anonymous complaints made to the Advertising Standards Agency but both were ruled to be without foundation.
Mr Bending said: ‘I only write these things because they tickle me. Freedom of speech is what this country is famous for and you should be allowed to say whatever you want so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.
The Diocese of Bath and Wells said it had no objections to the disparaging descriptions of vicars in the shop window.
Spokesman John Andrews said: ‘We can’t get upset. It’s quirky and a bit heavy-handed. We don’t need crack to get high. We’re reaching for the heavens through spiritual means.’
Comments:
I wish him every success, having read Estate Agents blurb, then go to view houses - they live on a different planet than everyone elses and waste so much of our time viewing property that doesn’t match the criteria. Can you pop over here and set up a business please!
- Karen, Ex Pat USA, 24/11/2006 18:58
An honest estate agent will be a novelty.
- Pedro Santamaria, Granada, Spain., 24/11/2006 18:53
I seem to remember in the 1960s there was an estate agent in London with this successful approach. By the way if any dipsomaniac would like to buy my house for three times what it’s worth, let me know.
- Peterh, Sittingbourne UK, 24/11/2006 18:43
Good for him, it made me have a real laugh for the first time in ages. By the way has anybody been to Glastonbury? Strange place!
- Valerie, Gateshead, 24/11/2006 17:29
Carry on up the Mendips (excerpts)
Julian Bending is an estate agent provocateur. Around Somerset, his saucy property ads cause shock and amusement in equal measure. In Julian’s world, flats are often “shagpads”, houses can be “rugged in a sweaty kind of way” and his idea of a good location might well be “below the great heaving bosom of the Mendip Hills”.
Four years ago, Julian opened his agency in Glastonbury High Street, a few doors up from a store called the Psychic Piglet, and opposite the Speaking Tree bookshop. “It’s a transformational kind of place,” he explains. It certainly seems to have changed him.
Before he set up on his own, he worked for agencies full of “public schoolboys who weren’t bright enough to become lawyers”. Once freed from those corporate chains, Julian adopted his own approach based, he says, on honesty and fun.
One of his first ads ran: “Wonderfully grubby house with three dark, damp bedrooms and a filthy back yard. Complete renovation required.” He sold it in a week. “In my previous incarnation, I probably would have said it needed ‘gentle refurbishment’ and would ’suit a couple who like DIY’,” says Julian. “I would have had a lot of dissatisfied customers, some of whom would have complained, rightly, about being shown a property that was only suitable for a builder.”
But Julian’s speciality is the risqué ad. Thus, a large house with adjoining converted barn set in the aforementioned Mendips becomes: “A monstrously double-cupped pair of beauties with one side larger than the other; but isn’t that always the way?” The house has “a deep attractive character that seems incapable of duplicity or any of the other, subtler, vices”, while the barn is “awash with old school sock atmosphere”. As for the village, “it’s a real cheese and cider sort of place but the inhabitants don’t all look the same.”
He certainly seems to have touched a nerve with some of the other agents in town. “Unequivocally, no comment,” was one hissed reaction to an enquiry about Julian’s methods. Perhaps his success has rubbed them up the wrong way. Julian, who calls his agency Ralph Bending, after his grandfather, has a £1 million turnover and a staff of eight, all women.
6 percent commission for Realtors is simply outrageous !!