Blogs and Citizen Journalism in Real Estate

Businessweek1One of The Real Estate Cafe’s first posts was in February 2004 fifteen months before Business Week’s cover story today, in response to a debate among blog gurus at Harvard about where
blogs would strike next: 

"Despite the setbacks to Howard Dean’s
first-of-a-kind Internet operation, the current discussion around the
Blogosphere seems to be centered on when and where the next major
impact point will be, and not whether the Internet will be an important
player from this point on in the American political panorama.

…there is a sea change in the air, and some of the bulwarks of
conventional control of the information stream are crumbling under the
relatively free-form innovations from the digital frontier."

The February 2004 post continued, "This is where blogs might find an entry point in the real estate
industry. As you know Ralph Nader and Steve Brobeck of the Consumer
Federation of America both called the real estate industry a cartel
more than a decade ago. One of my visions is a network of home buyers
who post reviews of open houses and report on local market trends from
the consumers’ perspective. As the air comes out of the real estate
bubble and the industry slides into a multi-year downcycle, home buyers
will become increasing cautious and hungry for this kind of ‘citizen
journalism.’"

Fifteen months later, it’s no accident that one of the Business Week articles featured Curbed.com, the leading real estate blog in New York if not the nation, because "[it] dishes the dirt the brokers don’t." Explaining the popularity of his blog, founder and former Massachusetts resident Lockhart Steele told BW, "People trust blog posts more because
they sound like e-mails from a friend."  Since it’s founding in May 2004, Curbed.com’s traffic has soared to over a million page view per month.

Related Articles

Real time “comps”

Link to recent press post Inman re "real time real estate."

Instead of developing a "CMA" type of report that describes sold data, I’ve
been using the "pending date" instead of the sold date.

 
Reason?  The market is changing so much on a daily or monthly basis,
that considering "comps" may not be as accurate if the sold date is used, as
much as using the "pending date."  If you develop a list of 6 houses that
sold in August to compare those sales with an offer you’re making today, then
what if the market has been in a decline since March?  How much of a value
difference may there be from properties that went pending in the spring,
compared to a property on the market now?
 
Some, if not all of those 6 "comps" could have sold last spring.  As
we know, listing agents and appraisers will often use the "comps" that best fit
the subject being appraised rather than an objective assessment of the sales
data.
 
So, next time you structure some type of analysis, why not use "pending
dates" instead of "sold dates" to make any comparison to a subject property
you’re trying to negotiate for on behalf of your buyer clients?
 
I suggested this to one of the "honest" appraises we typically use
here…he said he’s only using month old "comps" because there is an ongoing
decline in values here.

Boston housing market 2006: “Hard landing” or “return to normalcy”?

Three weeks after economist Nicholas Perna told the Boston Globe that "both early data and the anecdotes — are pointing more toward a hard rather than a soft landing" for the [Massachusetts] housing market, Perna repeated that assessment in the Boston Herald following news that single-family home sales fell 9.2 percent in November.  Need to confirm, but isn’t that the four month this year of near double-digit decreases compared to 2004?

"It sounds more and more like the housing adjustment is a harder landing in Massachusetts than elsewhere in the country,’ said economist Nicholas Perna. ‘I don’t think we are seeing anything like that in the country as a whole. My guess is that Massachusetts is among the most seriously affected."

Some real estate professionals dismissed the significance of falling sales, calling them a "return to normalcy."   What’s your take?  Your comments are welcome below, or on our readers’ "record your own podcast" line:  617-876-2117. 

Will homebuyers create their own “Twitter posses”?

Powerofus_twitterposses
Thanks to PBS.org’s Idea Lab for introducing me to the phrase, "Twitter posse."  Their vision of reporters asking questions via Twitter reminds me of Real Estate Cafe blog posts about "home buyers turned embedded real estate reporters."  Three years ago, February 11, 2005, we said:

"…our goal is to help seed a new generation of "embedded real estate
reporters" or citizen journalists."

A more pointed question, "Will mobloggers pop the real estate bubble?" followed on April 17, 2005, four months before the housing market peaked in Massachusetts and a year before we invited bubble bloggers and citizen journalists to contribute to our Real Estate Bubble Map.

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of potential uses for Twitter in real estate, so why limit brainstorming about Twitter Posses to reporters?  Just substitute the word "home buyer" for reporter in the original Idea Lab post and you’ll see that "homebuyer posses," "househunting posses," or "neighborhood posses" could become commonplace:

A potential home buyer could enlist a dozen or two dozen passionate, driven home buyers to serve as a kind of Twitter posse. Whenever she was about to tackle a big story or difficult interview, the home buyer could begin a mobile dialogue with fellow home buyers.

What I like about the concept: It brings a much-needed air of transparency to the house hunting process.  It expands the home buyer’s field of vision.

Combine that with interactive mapping, or add Twitter posts to our Real Estate Bubble Map, and consumers could create a powerful new way to share market insights by typing 140 character messages into their smart phones as they tour open houses, drive through new neighborhoods, etc.

Any home buyers or sellers in Boston or elsewhere already using Twitter?  Any real estate professionals, particularly buyer agents, already organizing "househunting posses"?  (Any developers want to work on the idea?)  Post examples below, or @realestatecafe on Twitter.  You can follow our latest Tweets on our blog, or http://twitter.com/realestatecafe

Greenspan’s “Interest Rate Conundrum”

While Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan once again told Congress he does not see a national housing bubble, he repeated his warning of May 20, the day Greenspan first used the "F" word:

"…at a minimum, [there are] signs of froth in some local markets where home prices seem to have risen to unsustainable levels."  Expressing his concern about interest-only loans, Greenspan added, "To the extent that some households may be employing these instruments
to purchase a home that would otherwise be unaffordable, their use is
beginning to add to the pressures in the marketplace."

According to NPR’s "All Things Considered," mortgage rates fell again today and stand at a 14 month low.  In the past, Greenspan has called that "a conundrum" because "falling interest rates have [historically] signaled looming problems."  Greenspan does not see that this time, according to NPR, because globalization is changing price structures, easing concerns of inflation. 

Interest rates at 14 month lows may sound good to some home buyers, but not everyone agrees.  According to Tom Ashbrook, host of NPR’s nationally syndicated OnPointRadio, low interest rates may "portend real shocks down the road." 

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