Going to Inman Connect NYC 2010?

Want to save $100?

Just enter the promo code PhoenixREGuy at registration checkout, and you’ll get an additional $100 off. (If you are an Inman Premium member, be sure to log in first, and you get an additional $100 off.)

Why should a real estate professional attend Inman Connect?

It’s the best collection of real estate minds assembled in one place that I’ve personally experienced. The program for this Connect looks fantastic. Some speakers have already been identified, and more are being added. I can’t count how many real estate visionaries, leaders of technology companies and ground-breaking thoughts, ideas and products I’ve encountered at previous Connects.

For what it’s worth, it’s the single best real estate conference I’ve attended.

And let’s be honest, New York City is a cool place to hang out. And the parties are epic.

Of note: If you are in the Phoenix area (or even remotely close) and want to attend, let me know because if we get a group of 5 or more, I can get us an additional discount. If we can get 25 or so, it’s possible we can get an even sweeter deal with some extra “benefits”.

Be SURE to enter the promo code PhoenixREGuy at registration checkout to get your $100 discount! But hurry, this discount code expires on November 21!

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Disclosure: This discount code is offered through an affiliate program. Yeah, I get a discount too if you use it.

Thanks to the folks at Ubertor, a terrific real estate web site provider, not one, not two, but THREE lucky readers of Phoenix Real Estate Guy will get a complete Ubertor Premium site for a year for the ridiculous price of one dollar.

That’s no typo.

Win a website for a year for a buck.

Here’s how the Ubertor Site for a Buck contest works:

1) Shoot a video explaining “Why I need (deserve, want or desire) an Ubertor web site”. You don’t need any fancy pants video equipment. A Flip cam, a digital camera with video capability, whatever. Just shoot a short (less than two minutes) video showing why you need a cutting edge real estate web site from Ubertor.

2) Post a link to the video in the comments here, or post it on your blog and link back here. Either way will work.

3) Judges will pick three winners based on creativity, need, and the complete random whims of the judges. We’ll come to a consensus some way and announce the winners.

4) If currently have, or ever had, an Ubertor site, you’re not eligible to win. And it pains me to say this, but agents of Thompson’s Realty aren’t eligible either – we don’t want anyone to think the judging was tainted.

That’s it. It’s that simple.

The contest will run for two weeks – you need to submit your video by Midnight (Pacific time) on September 29.

Who are the judges?

Me, Ian Watt of the fabulous Vancouver Real Estate Video Blog and David Gibbons, Director of Community Relations at Zillow. I know Ian and David personally, they’re good guys. If you don’t like the way the judging goes, yell at me not them.

How can I make a winning video?

Bribery? Sucking up to the judges? Bribery clearly won’t work. Sucking up? Maybe.

Seriously, just do your best. Creativity helps. That doesn’t mean fancy production (though a certain quality level would help. It needs to be audible after all). I suspect this will be one of those things where a couple of entries will stand out above the others and may well be like the old saying about pornography “I can’t define pornography, but I know it when I see it”.

And now that I have a post on Phoenix Real Estate Guy that has the words “video” and “pornography” in it, I’ll probably start getting some interesting traffic…

Why is Phoenix Real Estate Guy doing this?

I can assure you that someone out there is thinking, “What’s in it for Jay”? The short answer is absolutely nothing. I don’t get any sort of kickback – not one single nickel. I’m not asking for links, or followers, or pats on the back. I happen to think the Ubertor product kicks ass. I know their CEO/Founder/Head Dude in Charge Steve Jagger and he brought up the idea and I thought it would be fun.

Why would Ubertor give away (for all practical purposes) three web sites?

Because they are smart. Word of mouth is some of the best marketing there is. Hopefully this little contest generates some buzz, and if nothing else they’ll get their product in the hands of three new people. And because Ubertor rocks, those three people will tell more people, who will tell more people. That’s how word of mouth works…

What can you tell me about Ubertor?

Here’s the “press release” version:

Ubertor.com is a Realtor website platform that has been in business for over 9 years.  The system is a templated platform but has the CSS completely unlocked so that any designer can build on the platform and create a custom look and feel.  It is also very SEO friendly and has become the preeminent choice for video blogging Realtors as their platform not only syndicates videos to YouTube and Viddler but stores videos on their own platform.  At the August 2009 Imnan News Connect Conference in San Francisco Ubertor took home the prize for "Most Innovative Web Service Award".

Here’s my version:

It’s quite possibly the best templated real estate site platform out there. Easy to use, flexible, coded well, and the sites look great.

So jump in folks. Shoot a quick video, let us know about it and on or about Sept 30 we’ll pick three winners who will have to take a crow bar to their wallets and pay a dollar for a real estate web site for a year!

As the number of foreclosures across the nation continues to set records, there is a sub-set of society that is being impacted that most people don’t first think of when they think of foreclosures…

Renters.

It is becoming more common for someone to have signed a rental agreement with a landlord who at some point during said agreement becomes delinquent and allows the property to go into foreclosure. What kinds of rights do you have if you are a renter in this situation?

According to Valley Real Estate Attorney Christopher Combs, here is what is possible should your landlord go into foreclosure and you still have a period of time left on your lease:

Under a new federal law that took effect May 20, the bank generally would have to honor the lease of bona-fide tenants.

One of the exceptions to the new law is that if the bank sells the home to a buyer who will use the home as a primary residence, the bank can then furnish a 90-day notice of eviction to the tenants.

In regard to your liability as the landlord, if your tenants are evicted, you can be held liable for your tenants’ monetary damages, such as higher rent and moving expenses, due to the early termination of their lease.

Who says all the smart people live in Silicon Valley?

Ok, so there are plenty of people with over-sized brains in Silicon Valley… but the first solution that I have seen to attack this problem was actually developed by a local company right here in the (Southeast) Valley.

At LemonLandlord.com you can actually monitor whether or not your landlord is in foreclosure. From what I understand, not only did the idea get grown here right in the Valley, but the back-end technical work was done by the Tech-Wonk-Super-Stars at Integrum which is one of the founding/anchor companies of the phenomenon known as Gangplank.

If you are renting a property in today’s market, I don’t see how it doesn’t make sense to keep an eye on your landlord.

Just in case.

About the Author: Justin McHood is a mortgage broker with VanDyk Mortgage Corporation. You can find him at Arizona Mortgage Team, on the Zillow’s Mortgages Unzipped Blog, and at most East Valley Friday Nights gatherings. He’s the one in the blue shirt.

Our “traditional” real estate website, ThompsonsRealty.com got a serious working over this weekend.

Before:

After:

Why?

I dunno. Why not? The old site had been around four plus years, and was just… getting old.

I was running the site on the Point 2 Agent platform, which I still think is one of the better real estate template site providers out there. I’ve met many of the people at Point2 and respect them professionally, and consider several of them friends. Through no fault of theirs, I’d let the site fall into disarray, and it needed a facelift.

Obviously I went with the Wordpress platform for the latest incarnation. There is still much work to be done, but the bulk of the pages I wanted to keep are there, the 301 redirects are in place where needed and now we sit back and see what happens.

Listing Syndication

One of the things that keep me with the older system was the excellent listing syndication that Point2 provides. For those that don’t know, listing syndication is (basically) putting your real estate listings out on other sites. You can manually enter them site by site – just remove all sharp objects from the room before you go that route. A syndication system lets you enter them once and it propagates the information out across the far reaches of the world wide web.

I’ll spare you the pro and con arguments of third party listing aggregators in this post, but suffice it to say that with most of the planet looking for homes on the Internet, it seems prudent to get our listings on as many sites as possible.

Point2 did that very well. (Albeit it was quite tiresome to enter listings into the Multiple Listing System (MLS) and then re-enter them into the Point2 back end).

Enter ListHub. They pull listing data directly from the MLS and syndicate them to 30 different property sites. Cost? Free. (Unless you want reporting – and you probably should – but it’s not all that expensive).

Benefits of Wordpress

For me, I know Wordpress fairly well and can make it do pretty much what I want. Your mileage may vary. But using it over a template provider gives me complete control, and if you know me, you know I’m a control freak.

There also appears to be a significant performance improvement. Here are load times taken before and after the switchover (courtesy of Pingdom):

Before:	After:

Templated sites contain a lot of “overhead” to allow for ease of editing. Wordpress is pretty lean and mean. (Plus, I left a lot of stuff in the gutter of the Information Highway.)

So, was it painful?

It was excruciating. There is no easy way to switch over files from a provider where I have no server access. We’re talking good old-fashioned cut and paste. And stripping out a lot of formatting code. And reformatting. And placing 301 redirects. And uploading photos and files and whatnot to the new server. Then there is all that DNS and email MX record propagation jazz to consider as well.

Yeah, it pretty much sucked.

What’s next?

I fully expect to get slammed in Google and see a drop in traffic. I dropped out a lot of content that was stale, but it was still content and would land long-tailish searches. Fortunately, I rely more on this very blog you are reading (assuming you’ve stuck with me so far) for prospecting than on the traditional site, but it still did quite well. I think suspect hope that over time the traffic will return. And I think over time that the Wordpress platform (and the amazing Thesis theme) will ultimately do better in the search engines. If nothing else, it’s easier to add new content on this platform, and between Thesis, Wordpress and the nature of a blogging platform all bodes well for the SEO future of ThompsonsRealty.com.

Only time will tell I suppose.

I’d love to hear any thoughts, suggestions, or criticisms. If you are industrious / curious / bored you can still see the original site at JayAndFrancy.com, and of course the makeover at ThompsonsRealty.com.

Greetings from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport!

Here I sit, waiting to catch the red eye flight cross-country to New York City where I’ll be speaking at Inman News’ Bloggers Connect — part of a biannual real estate conference hosted by Inman Real Estate News. I’ll be right smack in the middle of Times Square through Friday, so posting may be light.

There’s a small corner of the real estate blogiverse that seems to have a fundamental problem with this particular conference. It’s a curious thing as the main nay sayer has never attended to my knowledge and I know he at least hasn’t been to the last three (including this upcoming one).

Whatever.

I’m not a huge fan of conferences either. Rarely will one attend a conference of any sort and walk away with some stunning revelation on how to be a better agent, broker, father, person, whathaveyou.

This will be my third Inman Connect and in my humble opinion, it is the real estate conference to attend. Granted, I never attended the big annual Century 21 conference when I hung my license at a C21 brokerage. Saw some video though — it was a sea of gold jackets and an awful lot of cheer leading and  back slapping. Not really my cup of tea. I did attend the 2007 NAR (National Association of Realtors) Conference and Expo. It was quite interesting to see 30,000 something Realtors converge on Vegas. What struck me as odd about that conference was that even at 47, I felt like I was one of the youngest people there.

Inman is different. It’s not geared only to agents and brokers. A significant portion of those attending are real estate technology vendors, and typically there are a few new product announcements made. Some of these are good, and some not-so-swift.

The best part of the conference, for me, are the hallway and after-hours conversations. There are a bunch o’ smart people that attend Inman, and that smart has a way of wearing off. Talk to enough smart people and something is bound to stick.

The networking opportunities are extraordinary. Agents, brokers, Technology Officers, CEO’s, you name it and they are there. And they are willing to talk. And to listen. It’ll be great to re-connect with old friends, get to know some folks I’ve only previously known online and meet new people.

An added benefit of going to Connect this year will be RE Bar Camp New York — an “unconference”. No set agenda, no hidden agenda. Just lots of mulit-way discussion. I attended an RE Bar Camp prior to Connect San Francisco in July, so this will be my second iteration. We need to get an RE Bar Camp in Phoenix (and it’s been discussed).

Well enough rambling about the conferences. Suffice it to say that I’m pumped about attending. There will be video, photos, and written musings forthcoming.

I’ll post from there if I can. If not, we’ll return to your regularly scheduled programming on Saturday.

How many people that read Phoenix Real Estate Guy have an iPhone?

I have no idea.

I don’t even have one.

But, if you do have an iPhone, your Phoenix Real Estate Guy blog experience just got better. I know, hard to believe it could get any better isn’t it? But it did!

Here are some screen shots…

Just navigate to PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com, and you will see this:

Press the title for the full post, or the down arrow for a excerpt. The number in the little red circle indicates the current number of comments. See the “Menu” link? Press that…

How cool is that?

Of course you will want to add the iPhoneish Phoenix Real Estate Guy to your home screen. Just click the “+” link at the bottom and press “Add to Home Screen” (go ahead and email it to your buddies too while you are there):

And wha-la! You’ll have a spiffy little custom TPREG icon on your iPhone for easy access. Now all you iPhone users have no excuse for getting behind on your Phoenix Real Estate Guy reading!

With gratitude to Todd Carpenter at Lenderama for the plugin info, testing and screen shots.

My second semester college stats professor had this posted over his desk:

A statistician can have his head in an oven and his feet in ice, and he will say that on the average he feels fine.

Despite the fact that on multiple occasions I wanted to put either his head or mine in an oven, the guy really did teach me a great deal about the power, both good and bad, of statistics.

Now there is no way that six credit hours of statistics makes one an expert. Nor does sitting in meeting after meeting listening to semiconductor engineers drone on about F-tests and kurtosis. Been there, done that, made the charts. (Fair warning, don’t click those links without a bottle of aspirin handy.)

But having a little exposure to statistics does help one sift through the daunting pile of real estate stats that are published on a regular basis out there on the world wide web. Some real estate data analysis is very well done, some is not good but harmless in the grand scheme of things, and some is just flat out wrong.

Lately there seems to be a resurgence in the not good to bad category of real estate statistical analysis. I ran across a chart similar to this a couple of days ago:

What is this chart trying to tell us? The text said that it shows “units sold” in Phoenix, and that the upward trend was “happy news”. OK, I’ll buy that generally speaking, increased sales are a good thing.

But what does this chart really show us?

Absolutely nothing. Conspicuously missing is the Y-axis (vertical) scale. If you want to change the visual impact of a line chart, adjust the scale. Without a scale, we have no clue as to whether this chart means anything. Did sales go up by 10 units or 10,000? Isn’t that knowledge just a wee bit important if you are going to try to draw any conclusions from this data set?

Sadly, this chart (well, not THIS chart, but THIS one) wasn’t done by an individual who simply doesn’t know better. The chart I saw (but can’t copy without permission) was produced by REality, a company that claims to be “the leading provider of real estate market intelligence in North America” (an interesting statement given I’ve never heard of them — wonder if they have any data to support that claim?).

Business Week blows it too

The well-regarded publication Business Week provided an interesting example today of statistical analysis gone bad. In this brief article, BW tells us that traffic to certain markets on Realtor.com has increased and, “What this tells you is that a lot of people are starting to bottom-fish in these markets”.

Really?

Maybe that’s true, maybe not. To take one statistic — increased traffic — and conclude that means something in particular is quite the leap of faith. Traffic to this blog has increased dramatically this year, does that make it safe to say the Phoenix real estate market is booming?

What the BW article fails to explore, completely, are alternatives to why traffic may have increased on Realtor.com. Could it be due to a site redesign (which R.com went through), increased advertising in those markets by either local agents or R.com, a change in searcher demographics, a change in Google’s algorithms, or some weird shift in the space-time nexus? Who knows, all are plausible (well, maybe not the nexus thing, I pretty much made that one up).

“So what is the point Jay?” a bored and weary reader is likely saying right about now.

The point is, very few real estate agents (myself included) are well versed in statistics. Dare I say, neither are most main-stream media writers. Apparently neither is North America’s leading provider of real estate market intelligence. And you know what? The typical person looking for information about real estate is probably not all that familiar with statistical analysis either, though I have no statistics to prove that.

As a real estate agent building charts and tables filled with stats, keep in mind that conclusions you draw based on statistics may, or may not, be accurate. Do you really understand the difference between average, mean and median home price? Do your readers? Do you want to make predictions and draw conclusions from data you don’t really understand.

As a real estate “consumer”, be careful letting other people interpret data for you. You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet — unless it’s on this blog of course, he says dripping with sarcasm. In fact, it’s probably safe to assume the conclusion someone reaches from their “statistical analysis” is nothing more than their opinion that is loosely based on some data set. There is certainly nothing wrong with expressing an opinion, just be aware that’s what it is — an opinion. Do your due diligence, seek out varying opinions and analysis before reaching your own conclusions.

Hat tip to Ines at AgentGenius for the BW link.

Hey there Phoenix area real estate people!

Are you going to the ARMLS Tech Fair tomorrow or Friday?

I’ll be in the booth by our esteemed IDX provider, Diverse Soultions, chatting about blogging and social media type stuff.

Stop by if you’re there and say howdy!

ARMLS Tech Fair
When: Thursday and Friday, August 21-22 — 9:00am through 5:00pm
Where: Monterra at Westworld, 16601 N. Pima Road, Scottsdale, AZ 85260

The Tech Fair will be held concurrently with ARMLS training on the advanced features of flexmls in the same facility, so feel free to drop in after class!

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In the blog category five fabulous blogs were nominated:

1000Watt Blog
AgentGenius
Big Picture Blog
FBS Blog
Homegain Real Estate Blog

I may be slightly biased in that I contribute to two of these blogs (AgentGenius and HomeGain). Benn and Lani are responsible for much of the success of AgentGenius, and while I can’t speak for them, I’m sure they’d graciously contribute the success to the AG contributors. Louis at Homegain would follow right along. It has been my pleasure to work with Benn, Lani, Louis and all of the AgentGenius and HomeGain contributors.

Biased as I may be, I can attest that the other three nominees are all more than worthy to be named finalists.

Marc Davidson (and Brian Boero) at 1000Watt are brilliant writers and innovative thinkers. I’ve had a couple of conversations with Marc and can tell you that he’s as nice a guy as he is smart.

Speaking of nice and wicked smart, Michael Wurzer at FBS fits that mold to a T. For those in the Phoenix area, Michael is the CEO of the company that is bringing us our shiny new FlexMLS system.

I don’t know Barry Ritholtz at Big Picture blog, but I can tell you one thing for sure — if it’s financial info you are looking for, you need look no further.

Congrats to all the Inman Innovator Finalists in the Blog category! (and all the nominees in the other categories too, several of which I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and/or corresponding with.) Whoever ends up winning it will be deserving, and beating out some very tough competition.

See you all in San Francisco!

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Received this wonderful email from a current client:

The speed this client mentions is really all predicated on the use of electronic signatures. We use DocuSign as our “e-signature processor”, which enables us to send, sign and receive real estate contracts and documents at the speed of email. It’s convenient for all involved — the clients, the agent and their clients on the other side of the transaction and the title companies. If you’ve ever tried to read a document that has been faxed repeatedly, you’ll quickly realize there is another benefit to digital signatures — the documents don’t degrade in quality every time they are sent.

Over the weekend we submitted an offer, and it was countered by the seller with this as one of the counter terms:

XXXX Realty needs to see live signatures within 72 hours of completion of contract.

A conversation with the listing agent leads us to believe that he doesn’t seem to think electronic signatures are legitimate or legal.

My first reaction to that was, “This is 2008. Get with the program.” But rather than making some snide remark, it seemed better to take the high road and present some info to the listing agent to prove to him that electronic / digital signatures are indeed legal.

To wit:

From Realtor.org

President Inks Electronic Signatures Bill
President Clinton signed S. 761, the “Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act,” into law Friday, June 20, 2000 in Philadelphia, PA. This law becomes effective on October 1, 2000 for electronic transactions and March 1, 2001 for electronic records.

This law simplifies the real estate transaction by allowing two parties to treat electronic signatures with the same legal standing as “pen and ink” versions. It also establishes the legal validity of electronic records. This law includes protections that ensure consumers who wish to conduct business using the traditional pen and paper method may continue to do so.

The Electronic Signatures law provides the legal certainty and national uniformity necessary for consumers and businesses to:

Contract electronically for the purchase of goods and services, as well as the sale and lease of real property;

Process mortgage loan transactions electronically;

Receive related state and federal disclosures online;

Transfer promissory notes electronically;

Notarize transactions electronically; and

Obtain and maintain electronic records of transactions.

Note the President and the year… Clinton, 2000.

Arizona Specific Law:

The Arizona Electronic Transactions Act 

The Arizona Electronic Transactions Act (the “ETA”) creates statutory authority for creating contracts electronically, via computer, by adding A.R.S.§44-7001 et. seq.

As a result of this legislation, a contract formed by an electronic record cannot be denied legal effect and enforceability solely because it was formed electronically. A.R.S.§44-7007(B). Similarly, a signature in electronic form cannot be denied legal effect and enforceability solely because it is in electronic form. A.R.S. §44-7007(A). An electronic record and electronic signature satisfies any law that requires a signed writing, such as the Statute of Frauds requirement that a contract for the sale of real property be evidenced by a signed writing to be enforceable. A.R.S.§44-7007(D).

Here is A.R.S.§44-7007 in its entirety:

44-7007. Legal recognition of electronic records, signatures and contracts

A. A record or signature in electronic form cannot be denied legal effect and enforceability solely because the record or signature is in electronic form.

B. A contract formed by an electronic record cannot be denied legal effect and enforceability solely because an electronic record was used in its formation.

C. An electronic record satisfies any law that requires a record to be in writing.

D. An electronic signature satisfies any law that requires a signature.

Here is the catch with electronic signatures (at least in Arizona, it may be different in other states).

The ETA applies only to a “transaction between parties each of which has agreed to conduct transaction by electronic means. Whether the parties agree to conduct a transaction by electronic means is determined from the context and surrounding circumstances, including the parties’ conduct.” (A.R.S. §44-7005(B)).

So technically, if one side of the party doesn’t want the other side to utilize electronic signatures, they can make that demand.

But why in the world would you?

Yet this is exactly what happened in this transaction. Our buyers signed their offer digitally. The sellers countered requesting “live” signatures.

What a brilliant idea. You’re trying to sell your home in the middle of a buyer’s market, so you make a demand via counter offer that will inconvenience said buyer.  Is that because you don’t know electronic signatures are legally binding, you don’t believe it, you just don’t like them, or you want to make it as difficult as possible for the people attempting to buy your home?

(Of note, these same sellers also countered the closing date the buyers requested. Our buyers wanted to close on July 31. The sellers countered with a closing date of…. July 30. This prompts a response along the lines of, “WTF?!? Are they just attempting to be as difficult as possible?”).

Home sellers — think, really think about what you want to counter. If you’ve got a ready, willing and able buyer that has submitted an offer on your home this is a good thing. Pissing them off with petty demands is just silly. I’m not saying you should blindly accept any offer you receive — of course you shouldn’t. But to counter items that in the end run make absolutely no difference to your bottom line is putting a great deal at risk. Our buyers have hundreds of other homes to choose from. Making petty demands is a sure-fire way to make their decision to look elsewhere a whole lot simpler.

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