Time for a “Real Estate unConference”? Let’s start planning

Categories: "We" companies, Change Agents, Commission Reform, RECALL: Real Estate Consumer Alliance, Social Networking

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.

admin September 2, 2007

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Picnic-style Bubble Hour: “We’re not in Kansas any more”

What a week on Wall Street! How soon will housing prices in Boston respond to the credit crunch? That’s the subject we explored in our blog post last night that’s already been visited by more than 400 readers. Many of them have come from a link on local favorite, BostonBubble.com, so we’re inviting readers, Real Estate Cafe clients, and others to join us TONIGHT, Friday, August 17, 2007 for a picnic-style "Bubble Hour" at the Hatch Shell on Boston’s Esplanade, just before the outdoor showing of the classic movie, "The Wizard of Oz."

As always, Friday Flicks are FREE and start at sunset (approx. 7:30pm, we’ll start gathering around 6:00pm so we can share insights into the falling housing market). If it is not obvious where we are, please call us.

—–

If you’re a real estate professional, or just obsessed with money-saving real estate tools and toys, as we are at The Real Estate Cafe, join us for a real estate round table beforehand across the Charles River at MIT’s Muddy Charles Pub (TENTATIVELY, approx. 4-6pm). Bring your laptop so we can surf some of the hot new sites featured at Real Estate Connect in San Francisco. We’re also eager to begin brainstorming about the proposed real estate unconference this Fall in Boston.

If it is easier for fellow real estate professionals to meet earlier in the day, or in another venue (or to postpone the technology debriefing until another date, please use this wiki-style event planner to "Talk about it."

admin August 16, 2007

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Real Estate Games

Olympics fever has everyone writing about, Granted, Boston.com, the tag for Boston.com’s real estate blog has been "Everything you need to know about Boston’s other spectator sport" since it launched. Yesterday’s blog entry was entitled "Real estate games."

Perfect timing for FSBO open house this weekend at TogetherInMotion.com in Arlington, MA.

admin August 16, 2008

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Organizing real estate rebels, educating home buyers & sellers

Richard Howe’s blog post, "Urban Rebels," provided a timely opportunity to use the 4th of July to update our rallying cry for a consumer revolution in real estate. Howe is Register of Deeds for the Middlesex North District in Massachusetts, and has written extensively about foreclosures and their impact on neighborhoods and communities.

Excellent, timely post. With three million households behind on
their mortgage payments, and a projected two million headed towards
foreclosure, could the time finally be ripe for a consumer revolution
in real estate?

Some of use have been talking about that for more than a decade, but
as Glaeser writes, industry insiders have had "strong incentives to
fight for their regime.” (See WSJ editorial originally entitled "The Realtor Racket" and download study on "Bringing More Competition to Real Estate Brokerage.")

Collaborating with fellow real estate change agents, we hope to
invite home buyers and sellers in Greater Boston to restart
conversations begun 15 years ago at the “Consumer Revolution in Real
Estate” at our experimental new location: One Broadway, Arlington, MA.

We’ll experiment with seminars, real estate round tables, and web
site demos. I’m particularly excited about reviving our Bubble Hours
and hosting support groups for FSBOs & households facing
foreclosure. Perhaps you can join us at an upcoming real estate unconference, or
even present a topic / lead a discussion.

admin July 4, 2008

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We Media

About "We Media"

We are at the beginning of a Golden Age of journalism — but it is not
journalism as we have known it. Media futurists have predicted that by
2021, "citizens will produce 50 percent of the news peer-to-peer."
However, mainstream news media have yet to meaningfully adopt or
experiment with these new forms.

admin April 18, 2005

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