Marlow's Blog

Pimps more valuable than real estate agents?

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:06:18 -0600

Those Freakonomics guys are back again with a new book called Super-Freakonomics, where they continue their Realtor bashing with even more outrageous comments directed towards real estate agents.

With the first book, they posited the question How Are Real Estate Agents Like the Ku Klux Klan?

They're actually NOT like the Ku Klux Klan, of course, but their position was that when light was shown on the modus operandi of the KKK, they became irrelevant, as will the lowly Realtor.

In their new book Super-Freakonomics they comb the depths of intellectual dishonesty by declaring that prostitutes with pimps make more money but that home sellers with real estate agents actually net less.

In arriving at their conclusion that a pimp provides more value than a real estate agent, the authors analyzed two completely unrelated studies.

The first study found that prostitutes working solo in Chicago earn $325 a week while performing an average of 7.8 tricks, while prostitutes with a pimp working the same area earn $410 a week while doing only 6.2 tricks.

Even after paying a 25%, the authors say, prostitutes with a pimp "come out ahead on just about every front."

They contrast this with a study out of Madison, Wis., that concluded that houses sold by owners over the Internet fetched about the same price as those sold by real estate agents.

Why even compare pimps to real estate agents? Because it's outrageous, of course.

The average real estate agent is a 53-year old woman. Not the kind of person likely to be involved in prostitution on any level.

But isn't it fun to insult nice hard-working folks and won't it sell a lot of books!

"A Realtor and a pimp perform the same primary service: marketing your product to potential customers," Levitt and Dubner explain. The go on to say: "once you consider the value you get for each of these two agents, it seems clear that a pimp's services are considerably more valuable than a Realtor's."

Super-Freaky: Intellectual dishonesty or disingenuous immorality?

Advanced Access still Inaccessable

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:43:46 -0500

While a note on their company blog states that sites are back up, I am still unable to access my back "virtual office" to make needed updates.

I was advised to contact their "live chat", but recieved the following message:

There are no operators available at the moment. If you would like to leave a message, please type it in the input field below and click "Send" button

They have a great PR person, but it's just pretty words until my site gets back up and is functional.

Real Estate Agents Revolt: Advanced Access still out-of-service

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:06:28 -0500

It's Day 4 in the 2009 Advanced Access debacle, and I am still amazed that their lack of transparency over the issues affecting the services they provide to their customers.

They were updating and moving their data over to new servers, but that was last week and we haven't been able to access our back "virtual office" since last week. No emails. And no way to reach their corporate offices. They don't answer their phone or emails.

It’s about 2:30 PST, and I still cannot access my website to make needed updates and add new listings. I've written more about it here at www.360Digest.com

I checked the Advanced Access website, and there is nothing on there about the outage, except an advertisement to entice new customers. (http://www.AdvancedAccess.com)

I contacted their “online chat” and it was actually offline (http://www.advancedaccess.com/contact-us.html)

I went to their blog, where they claim the sites are up, but as we know, they are not (http://www.advancedaccess.com/blog/)

Why not put up a post like this:

“We’re sorry. We’re messing up. We’re all working on it as hard as we can. We’re so sorry we didn’t answer the phones all weekend or respond to any of your emails. We will immediately hire someone to monitor emails and/or the phone on the weekend THE TIME WHEN MOST REAL ESTATE AGENT ARE AT WORK. We will never again make a move like this without having some sort of contingent back-up plan. Please don’t bad mouth us. We’ll give you all a month of free web-hosting if you just stay with us. It’s so much easier and cheaper to keep the clients we already have than to try to lure new clients in, especially with such poor public relations. Please forgive us!”

Advanced Access Outage: Agent websites are down again

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:43:14 -0500

I've had an Advanced Access website for 10 years and was very happy with it the first 5 or so, until the company was sold to Dominion. Since then, Customer Service is a disservice and the product continues to suffer.

They've had periodic outages almost every month, and this last week, they've announced several "down times" late at night, but this weekend, the sites are out without explanation, we have no access to our "Virtual Office" to make needed updates and changes to our listings for our Open Houses on the weekend and no one is replying to emails and "Online Chat" is closed.

And, to add insult to injury, no one is in the office and you can't even call because the mailbox is FULL!

I thought maybe I was the only disgruntled AA website owner, but I found pleny of other unhappy customers (soon to be ex-customers, I'm guessing.)

Advanced Access Sucks

Redfin hiring again

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:40:08 -0500

Just a week after announcing lay-offs of 25% of its workforce, Redfin had this ad posted on Craigslist. Why not just re-hire the people they let go? Does it really make more sense to re-hire contract workers so they don't have to pay benefits? Why not just hire traditional agents who work on commission? Or is that what they're going to do? Very mysterious.

Ex-WAMU executive lists home for $6.25 million

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:14:13 -0500

Stephen Rotella, who was president and chief operating officer of Washington Mutual when it failed last month after being battered by mortgage losses, has listed his house on Capitol Hill for $6.25 million.

Rotella, who was president and chief operating officer, is entitled under his current employment agreement to a cash severance of $12.7 million if he is terminated or quits with "good reason."

He and his wife Esther bought the house for $3.78 million a few months after Rotella arrived in Seattle, from KING-TV newscaster Jean Enerson, in June 2005. It's a 7,430-square-foot house and has five bedrooms, four-and-a-half baths, a wine cellar and a fountain in the yard. It's located on almost an acre of land on the top of Capitol Hill, right behind Lake View Cemetery, where Bruce Lee is buried. Quiet neighbors.

Redfin "may fail yet": Massive lay-offs this week

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:46:38 -0500

In an interesting turn of events and display of transcendental transparency the CEO of Redfin has confessed his fears for the future and his sadness in having to let go 20% of his workforce.

The good news is that Coldwell Banker Bain is hiring. They are the 8th largest residential real estate company in the nation, employing more than 1,000 real estate professionals with 21 branch offices in the Pacific Northwest. Other brokerages throughout the nation are also hiring good and competent real estate agents.

No salary, commission sales only, but the sky's the limit. Unlike salaried agents, Coldwell Banker agents (and Century 21, Remax, etc.) have unlimited high earning potential and enjoy unparalleled training programs and vast marketing power. You can set your own hours and choose to work only on referral if you wish. No more meeting strangers in vacant homes if you don't want to do it or writing up pointless offers for bottom-feeders.

Ex-Redfin agents, think you'll miss that exciting atmosphere of building a start-up? If you've got the drive, help yourself get ahead instead of assisting some start-up VC-funded company that's just going to fire you as soon as times get tough. You can't fire yourself! Nothing is more exciting than working for yourself and keeping your own counsel. Aren't you tired of working for people who aren't as smart as you are? Liberate your life by being your own boss.

Think you'll miss the high-tech diddles and doo-dads you had at Redfin? Staying on the cutting edge of technology, Coldwell Banker and ReMax leads the pack in high-tech real estate. In fact, Coldwell Banker is the first real estate website to launch video in their marketing efforts for agents and properties (Go ahead...take a peek at your peers!). Additionally, Coldwell Banker is the first real estate company to list an actual home for sale in the virtual community of Second Life.

Where Redfin may have a failing business model, Coldwell Banker just recently celebrated 100 years in the real estate business. Good luck. And give us a call if you want to chat.

Tree House Workshop

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:57:49 -0500

For the first time in it's ten year history, the annual Treehouse Conference will be held in Fall City, WA (25 miles east of Seattle), at Treehouse Point on October 10th, an events facility owned by Pete and Judy Nelson, the folks who own Tree House Workshop. (Peter Nelson is the author of a series of great Tree House books.)

Treehouse Workshop offers full design and build services for your treehouse project, but they also help you if you want to design and build it yourself.

Their workshops will equip a homeowner with the skills needed to design and build your own treehouse, and they cover how to select a tree and evaluate its health, basic tree-climbing, tool safety, design, construction of your platform, and how to build and finish your structure.

Tree House Workshop is also a licensed and bonded contractor in Washington State, so if you don't want to build your own, they can build it for you. Peter's book is a fabulous peek at treehouses he's designed and others have built around the world.

Seattle Tour of Houseboats

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 03:03:51 -0500

September 7, Noon - 5:00pm

Floating Homes On Tour

Nine Lake Union, Three Portage Bay

Free Espresso Drinks!

Seattle's Floating Homes Association biennial houseboat tour will be Sunday, September 7, 2008 from noon to 5:00 p.m. This year's tour will feature 12 floating homes, 9 on the east side of Lake Union and 3 in Portage Bay. A mix of quaint and eclectic cottages and larger, more modern as well as historic homes with a variety of decor have been specially chosen to give viewers a chance to look at this unique water-oriented community and lifestyle.

Seattle Real Estate Information

Does that content belong to you?

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:32:11 -0500

Many of us have our own websites that we have created ourselves. They belong to us, not our company or brokerage or web host, right?

A few years ago, as an experiment, I purchased a "Connecting Neighbors" website. I was intrigued by the interactive nature of the site and I loved the automatic monthly newsletters that I could adapt to my own chosen neighborhood. It was a template site, yet allowed for a good deal of customization. I could create pages and content, including neighborhood photos, school info, entertainment, arts, events, recipes and local real estate.

And I did that. I added photos of local restaurants and shops, parks, schools and events. I added stories about neighborhood happenings and highlighted local fund-raisers, pancake breakfasts and lasagna dinners. I added new listings as they became available, and I added hundreds of links to local and neighborhood websites that would be of interest to those who lived in or who were relocating to the neighborhood.

The coolest thing about the website was that, theoretically, after it was set up, you wouldn't have to do anything. Because it was interactive, readers could add their own content without being registered, and Connecting Neighbors would monitor the content for anything that was inappropriate. Readers could add information about their church picnic or the winner of the local elementary schools soccer match. It actually worked pretty well.

The cost of the website with the automatic newsletter mailing was $39.95 a month, and I had thought it worth-while if I had been able to get a critical mass of readers together to keep it fresh and updated.

Alas, I could not, and it was up to me to continually add content.

When they raised the price in January to $59.95 a month, I thought it time to bail and just chalk it up to a lesson learned.

However, when I went to cancel, they kept the site live.

When I pointed out to them that I had cancelled the website, I was told by a representative of the company: "Please note the website still remains live online so it can be resold by our sales team."

I was shocked. They had removed my name, photo and contact information from the site, but kept the name and all of the original content and photos online and they were attempting to market it, fully customized, to another real estate agent.

Of course, I couldn't let that happen. Fortunately, I was still able to access the site, so I could delete all of the photos and original content and add my own disclaimer to alert any unwary agent in the future that the website contained content that I had compiled and created.

Luckily, I also owned the domain name, so I was able to redirect that to another page I had created, but I'm guessing other unwitting real estate agents may not be able to do that and they may become a victim of this company. Respected names in the real estate industry, including Michael Russer and Allen Hainge, are partners with Connecting Neighbors, and I hope they will look into this unfair practice so other agents are not victimized by their actions.

Connecting Neighbors urges agents to purchase not only the website through them, but the domain as well. Hence, when the website is discontinued, Connecting Neighbors can just sell that site to another agent, even though it may be a very elaborate site, with a customized look, feel and brand, created by one particular agent. Nothing belongs to the agent, it's all owned by Connecting Neighbors, even if created by the purchaser. This is good to know if you're considering working with this company. It's potentially a valuable product, but may not be worth the cost in the long run since once you start with them, they can just raise the price and if you discontinue, all your hard work, branding and unique domain name can then be sold to another.

The right thing to do would be to just take the website offline when the service was cancelled and not try to resell the site to another before removing all of the custom content.

The Painted House

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 03:05:25 -0500

The most popular house paint color in the Pacific Northwest is white. At least that is what the guy at Daly's told me. I see a lot of gray too. Why is that? Why not bring a little color, light and sunshine to our homes in rainy Seattle?

BoingBoing.net had a great article called How to paint anything the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge. Todd Lappin wanted to paint his kitchen the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge. After visiting a Sherwin-Williams dealer in San Francisco, he was told that the consumer color called "Fireweed" (color code SW 6328) is a color equivalent to the paint used on the bridge. (To see his new kitchen ceiling click here.)

Here's a cute story by Susan Phinney in the P.I. "Bold palettes are pizazzing up the neighborhood".

For more bright homes, check out The Painted House.

Help for the Color Disassociated from the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

Niche Marketing in Real Estate

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:27:52 -0500

Rather than trying to be all things to all people, many agents are playing upon their unique strengths to highlight their realm of expertise and to set themselves apart from other agents who work in the field.

Some agents focus on first-time home buyers, others aim for the luxury market, and then others just focus on a certain neighborhood or area of a city.

Phoenix Rudner chooses to focus on the pet-owning home buyer, a person who might have a certain search criteria based on the needs of their dog. His website Seattle House Hound emphasizes this specialty in a fun and informative way. He is also a contributor to Seattle PI blog "Gone to the dogs"

PI Reporter Aubrey Cohen writes about other agents who've specialized in a certain segment of the population in Real estate agents take dramatic turn for sales.

Focusing on a certain segment of the population is an interesting way to differentiate oneself from the crowd and a way to play upon ones likes, dislikes and preferences.

For instance, when buying or selling a condominium, some folks might like to employ the services of an agent who focuses specifically on those properties, though most agents sell both condos and single family homes. Other buyers and sellers may only be interested in an agent who specializes in a certain neighborhood. Niche marketing assists clients who are looking specifically for these agents.

Mexican haciendas becoming hot targets for Americans

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 02:35:14 -0500

"Onward, the Mexican land rush."

Lured by beachfront vistas, quaint colonial backdrops and a historic construction boom, thousands of Americans are heading down Mexico way to snap up vacation homes, retirement villas and investment properties.

Heartened by sweeping reforms in the country's judicial and foreign-investment systems over the past decade or so and heightened interest from investors, many Americans have watched the values of their south-of-the-border properties head north in surprisingly short order"

Moving South/Seattle Times/ 3/27/05 by Steve McLindon

Bill's in the house

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:07:16 -0500

Bill Gates is slowly stepping down as chief software architect at Microsoft Corp. and will slowly move 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.

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.

Real Estate by the Numbers

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:57:47 -0500

One of real estate agents typical tasks is to help a homeowner ascertain the proper asking price for a home. Even with the assistance of Zillow and other online resources, it's generally recognized that price opinions from active agents in the business, who might see dozens of homes a day, are important in arriving at a reasonable asking price.

The New York Times had an interesting article last week "The Psychology of Pricing" that attempts to make sense of this important task.

It dissects the strategy of underpricing. It discusses the risks of overpricing. It deliberates the "odd price". It reviews the concept of rounding up. It weighs that against the idea of rounding down.

It's conclusion? Everyone has a different opinion!

I had clients a few years ago who insisted on consulting a numerologist to pick the proper numbers to bring the maximum amount of good juju when we sold. So, we arrived at a price (a crazy number like $543,294, that insured that any buyer would think that both I and the seller were nuts). By some miracle, we finally got an offer but then we couldn't accept it because the numbers were "bad". We then had to counter at another ridiculous nonsense number, before finally arriving at something that was acceptable.

Some adherents of numerology assign a different set of meanings to the numbers and certain number combinations are considered luckier then others. In general, even numbers are considered lucky, since it is believed that good luck comes in pairs. Some astrologers believe that each number, from 0 to 9, is ruled by a celestial body in our solar system. Scientific theories are sometimes labelled 'numerology' if their primary inspiration appears to be mathematical rather than scientific.

I think it's important to look to all credible sources when arriving at an asking price and a probable sales price for a home. Past sales of similar homes in the same neighborhood is probably the best source to arrive at a reasonable price. Or consult your numerologist.

Algorithms - Evolutio Rodurago

Comparative Numerology: The Numbers One to Ten: Fundamental Powers

How to Price Your Home to Sell -- Realtor.com

Cool House Numbers for Sale

Virtual suburbs on stage

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 01:33:32 -0500

I've often decried the rapidly-growing suburbs ruining beautiful, formerly "rural" areas, but I enjoy depictions of suburban blandness on the stage and screen. I think we all are fascinated by the idea of hidden secrets behind the vanilla facade of suburban banality, and several productions come to mind that are set in the humdrum ranch house. Pleasantville and that new show on F/X "The Riches", is set in a frightening suburb. And who can forget Edward Scissorhands, the goth fairytale set in a bland suburb of almost identical houses?

Well, interestingly enough, the film by Tim Burton has been adapted as a stage play by Matthew Bourne, and will be traveling around the country for the next year or so.

This new "tweaked" story opens with a young boy who dies tragically while playing with scissors. The boy's father, an inventor, consoles himself by building a new boy, Edward. Tragedy strikes again when the inventor dies before completing his work and the bewildered Edward, left with scissors instead of hands, flees to a candy-colored suburban community.

It's not long before the entire town embraces his unique hair-cutting and topiary talents, and he falls for the teenage daughter of the family that takes him in. Miraculously, she's smitten as well, and their love story forms the heart of the stage interpretation.

From their website, it appears that the play is set both in a saccharine-sweet suburb and also in a gothic castle, so lots of architectural eye-candy on stage, plus, from their website, what sounds like some haunting and ethereal music.

I plan to catch this play when it comes to Seattle this week to the 5th Avenue Theater.

HouseValues clients, customers and employees sound off

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 02:23:31 -0600

On Jan. 25th, HouseValues announced that it is exiting the mortgage lead generation business and is scaling back or eliminating initiatives that are not critical to its real estate agent customers. These reductions are expected to result in an overall reduction of the company's workforce by about 12 percent or 60 employees.

John Cook, a business reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, caught wind of the news early and his Venture Blog became the sounding post for dozens of anonymous comments and complaints from customers, current and ex-employees.

The company's recent exit from mortgage lead generation has spurred speculation about future growth in real estate lead generation. An interesting question is how these business models can survive in a world where consumers don't want to give up their e-mail addresses in exchange for information they can find elsewhere without having to do so.

The "Rip-Off Report" has more interesting (and inflammatory!) comments from past customers.

Home Staging for Maximum Sales Price

Marlow Harris (Seattle Dream Homes) — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 01:06:20 -0600

Builders have known for years that home staging works. That's why the sales office is often located in a model home. Staging sells.

Buyers often say they have a good imagination and can "picture" how a home will look furnished, but can they? I've often heard that "Buyers are Liars", which sounds harsh, but isn't meant to be at all. What agents mean is that Buyers often don't know what they want and they'll say one thing while meaning another. Their capability of "visualizing" how a home will look is often one of those things they're "lying" about, without even meaning to.

Builders tell tales of how as soon as one model home is sold they'll move the furniture to the second. That ones sells, and they move it to the third, and so on. Beautiful finishes and furnishings sell homes. "Clean" sells homes. A restful environment sells homes.

If your goal is to get top-dollar for your home, then you must create a space that the Buyer wants to inhabit, live in, own and love.

Staging before-and-after examples