Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog » Internet

SpotCrime shows a map of recent reported crimes

Steve Belt — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:38:23 +0000

Via GeekBrief.tv, which reported they found out about this via TechCrunch, I found out about SpotCrime. SpotCrime has a map based display of crime information, which they are making available for several Arizona cities. The web site allows you to search by reported crime type, which they show on the map, for a given time period. The default display shows crimes from all categories in the last 2 months.

For people that are considering a move to a new neighborhood, this could be one way you are able to gather crime information, to help you in your decision making.

In the Phoenix area, SpotCrime covers Glendale, Gilbert, Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale, and of course Phoenix. Surprisingly, Tempe isn’t on their list. FYI, SpotCrime also covers Tucson.

I did some sample searches and found their data seems to only go back to January 1, 2008. My own office building in North Scottsdale was broken into around Thanksgiving of 2007, and for accuracy, was hoping to check to see if that crime would be on the map. Unfortunately, since they don’t have 2007 data, I couldn’t confirm it.

The map displays the 300 most recent data points, which is something to keep in mind, particularly for a large city like Phoenix. Below the map you can see the address and date for every data point, so you do know when the data gets cut off.

Final iPhone Contest Support Request

Steve Belt — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:15:49 +0000

Yesterday, I met new clients from Flower Mound, TX here in my office. They are looking for a new place to live in North Phoenix or possibly North Scottsdale. As we were chatting in my office Jeff asked me, “Steve, did you win that iPhone yet?” I was blown away. I found out that not only had his wife registered, he too had read the article here on the blog, and was interested to know the status. Thanks so much for the support Jeff and Kristi.

What is the status?

On May 2, PropertyQube announced that they had an iPhone contest to help raise more awareness about their site. It definitely feels like it’s working for PropertyQube, because the Q&A section has been far more lively this month than ever before. I can definitely tell more and more people are finding and using the site.

Last week I was revealed to be in first place to win the iPhone contest. I’m pleased with that, but you don’t often win resting on your laurels. Accordingly, there’s still time left for anyone that may not have visited PropertyQube to join my network and thus hopefully ensure my victory (contest ends May 31). As a result of past attempts by people to join my network, the folks at PropertyQube have actually made it easier. In fact, they did so in about a day, after we learned it wasn’t quite as easy as it could be (which is yet another reason I endorse PropertyQube…the folks there listen to feedback and make changes).

Join my Network

To join my network, all you have to do is click on the link below, register to be a PropertyQube member, and then you’ll automatically be connected to my network. Prior to the enhancement they made last week, you had to register, then search for me, request to be connected to my network, wait for my approval (as if I would decline anyone?), and then we were finally connected. The new process is definitely much easier.

If you’ve signed up and connected to me, thank you! If you’ve signed up, but aren’t sure you connected, visit your My Connections page and look for me. If I’m not there, just click connect to me from here again and we should get automatically connected. If you haven’t registered or connected to me, but wouldn’t mind supporting my efforts to win an iPhone, please consider connecting. As an added bonus, PropertyQube has some pretty nice social networking/real estate features, that are well worth checking out.

Finally, here’s that link again. FYI, it also appears on the left sidebar of the blog. If you are reading this in a feed reader or via email, and the link below doesn’t work, due to anti-phishing/spam settings, please visit the blog and try from there. Thanks!

Help Steve Belt win an iPhone

Steve Belt — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:03:12 +0000

That’s right, I’m going straight to the point. This is real estate transparency at it’s clearest. I want to win an iPhone, and I need your help to do it. In January I wrote that I needed a smart phone, and I’ve held off the purchase for various unknown reasons, so the need still exists. Today, the reason revealed itself (the universe works in mysterious ways).

Here’s all you need to do to help me win. Click on the new Property Qube link there below my ugly mug on the left sidebar. If you are reading this in a feed reader, here’s the button and link I’m referring to:

After you click that, I’m asking you to join Property Qube and connect to my network. It’s free. It won’t hurt. No one is going to come and bother you in the future. The person (agent or otherwise) that can get the most connections in the month of May will win an iPhone. I want to be that person.

Ok, you may be thinking to yourself, I like Steve a bit, but what good is this Property Qube thing anyway? Why bother joining?

Here’s what Property Qube is: It’s a social networking website that’s seeking to help buyers and sellers connect with each other and real estate agents in mutually beneficial ways. Naturally, that means you can find listings of homes for sale or for rent on Property Qube. They’ve also got a pretty cool Q&A section where you can ask a question and get an answer. Plus they have social groups. Create a group of indy coffee drinkers from Amarillo, Texas and invite your friends to hang out on Property Qube and chat real estate (or coffee) if you like. Wanna create a blog about your home buyer, selling, or remodeling experience and have it seen by like-minded people? Property Qube would be good spot. If you already have a blog that’s real estate related, you can have your posts syndicated (in a Google friendly way) to Property Qube to garner extra visibility.

Having been at Property Qube since near its inception, what I like about Property Qube is the environment is pretty relaxed. Unlike similar sites, the agents helping folks on Property Qube are doing so to help first. There isn’t a competition based system that encourages agents to answer each and every question asked. This leads to fewer answers, admittedly, but from what I’ve seen, it also leads to better answers. For agents looking for a more relaxed environment to offer their services within, Property Qube is a place worth considering. Likewise, for non-agents looking for a place to discuss real estate in an non-competitive environment, Property Qube is well worth considering.

Have I convinced you it’s worth a try? I sure hope so. If I have, click on the link and join my network. I can’t promise to make you rich or save you millions, but I will promise to graciously thank each and every person that joins my network for helping me win.

New Features at Trulia: One Major Blunder

Steve Belt — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:43:10 +0000

Today I received an email from Trulia announcing a number of (potentially) welcome changes to the way a member’s profile is set up:

Include testimonials and experience
Claim up to 20 areas of expertise
Add a headline to your profile e.g., “The best realtor around”
Add up to two links to help your Website SEO

I added the bold to the above, because it illustrates so clearly my biggest gripe with Trulia: The site encourages REALTORS® to be unethical. I’ll explain further, with a quote from the official Membership Marks Manual, which can be found on Realtor.org:

Never

· Never use descriptive words or phrases to modify the MARKS. This is explicitly prohibited by Article V, Section 7 of the Bylaws of the National Association. Adjectives may suggest an improper vocational meaning and also tend to distort the consistent understanding and image of these terms, thereby undermining their identifying function:

–Main Street’s most qualified REALTOR®
–Consult a professional REALTOR®
–Doe County’s leading REALTOR®
–The concerned REALTOR®
–Number one REALTOR-ASSOCIATE®
–Your local REALTOR®

As you can see, the above recommended use for the “headline to your profile”, as encouraged by Trulia, is never to be used. As a result, I have three recommendations for Trulia:

I encourage Trulia to find a way to improve its feedback loop with REALTORS® to avoid making recommendations like this in the future. Mistakes like this tell me that there isn’t a past or present REALTOR® on staff at Trulia, or at least in the marketing department, that is overseeing the communication to the REALTOR® community.
I encourage Trulia to send out a retraction email, immediately, noting a proper and ethical way to use the new profile headline.
I encourage Trulia to police its own site, looking for REALTORS® that may not see the retraction, and as such have inadvertently set up an unethical Trulia Profile.

As of yet, I haven’t had time to look into the new “areas of expertise” feature, to discover how it benefits both agents and non-agents. If it addresses one of my other big gripes, namely agents working outside their area of expertise, I’ll be a huge, huge fan of the change.

How do you shop for real estate online?

Steve Belt — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:42:56 +0000

photo credit: svenwerk

Yesterday, I had a long meeting with 2 top producing agents that work at Realty Executives. They’ve each been in the business a very long time (50ish years combined experience). The reason they wanted to meet with me (a relative neophyte in comparison), was my experience with online marketing programs. This blog, for example. Google ad words as another. Even craigslist. I have used, and will continue to use these, as well as many other online tools and techniques to market for new clients, tenants, buyers, owners, sellers, investors, or whatever it is we should call someone that’s interested in shopping for or selling real estate.

The reason for the meeting, was that my esteemed colleagues had just signed up with Fox News 10 and My 45 to become one (or in this case two) of 40 agents that will be featured on the Phoenix Fox website as area real estate experts. For the small sum of $12,000, these 2 agents purchased the right to be exclusive owners of a corner of Phoenix. My jaw dropped at that number too. It’s ok, I’ll giving you a second to recover. I’ve had 24 hrs now, so the shock and awe has faded a tad.

Exclusivity is a great thing, and presumably Fox’s website has a lot of traffic. Not only will my colleagues be featured/exclusive on the website, there will be teasers during the news broadcasts, encouraging people to visit the website for more real estate info. That also seems like a pretty good thing. The talking head on TV says, “for more information visit the website,” and then when you visit the website, if you end up looking for homes in the right area, you’ll be nudged along to work with the area experts that are featured.

In comparison to the Fox News approach, lets compare the cost of using a Google AdWord campaign to target someone to visit my website. ”Phoenix Realtor” for example is going to cost you about $5/click. After the click, you still don’t know who is doing the clicking, but hopefully where the click takes the person has some really good content encouraging them to call, email, or in some way “capture” that person and convert it into a “lead” (I’m not a huge fan of that word, btw, but it serves the purpose for this discussion). My personal marketing question is, will the Fox News approach garner more business than a high budget AdWord campaign? At least, that’s today’s $12,000 question.

But what seemed more important to me, was whether my colleagues were really in a position to garner the potential benefits of their investment. Is the approach of being featured at Fox going to result in someone clicking on them, learning more about them, and eventually contacting them directly? Will there be enough of the other real estate content at the Fox website to keep you interested and engaged while you ponder your real estate decision?

And this is where we get to the title of the post: How do you shop for real estate online? Is searching the MLS for properties currently listed for sale, what you care about when shopping online? Is searching for a real estate agent, what you are thinking of when shopping for real estate online? Is it a combination of the 2? Are you also looking for news about the real estate market, with opinion about where it might be headed?

I know people fall into all of those types of online real estate shoppers. What I think there is the most of, however, are folks that are searching for a very specific property that is north of, south of, east of, west of, priced between XXX and YYY with ZZZ bedrooms. And at the point they find that online, they are going to look on the page for any phone number to call, and want to buy that property through the number on the page, right now. These online shoppers don’t necessarily know or understand what a real estate agent does to add value to their buying process. They only think that they need one of us to accomplish their goal of buying a home. They’ve done all of the research, they’ve picked out their home, and now they want the agent to write a contract.

I estimate that far more than half of all online shoppers of real estate, are shopping in exactly this way. Why do I think that? Because the old teambelt.com has a registration that is needed before you can actually search MLS. And most of the time, registration is filled out fictitiously. Why would that be? Because those online real estate shoppers want to stay anonymous longer. Much, much longer. It’s also why I don’t require someone to register here to search the MLS. Here you can stay anonymous for as long as you want. So you are free to search for yourself, on their own timetable, with no pressure. It’s exactly how I feel when I buy a car these days. I can’t stand the pressure you get placed under at some car dealerships, and have resorted to using email as my tool of choice for shopping for a car.

Diving in a bit deeper, I asked my 2 colleagues how prepared they were to work with an internet real estate shopper. This is essentially their first foray into working with an internet buyer/seller. The interesting thing, was that neither of them liked to work via email. They both said they really wanted their client to call them and talk to them in person. In my mind, I said, “destined for failure.”

Will the $12,000 gamble pay off for my colleagues? Honestly, unless they make personal business habit changes and adapt very quickly, I doubt it. Will it work for anyone that signs up at Fox News? I don’t think it will work better than a similarly priced AdWord campaign. Will a few agents break even, or even make money? Probably a lucky few that are otherwise well positioned. The problem I see is that I don’t think enough real estate shoppers are going to start, finish, or continue their shopping on Fox’s website. Some people will, but I don’t think enough people will go there for every agent to see a return on their $12,000 investment. At least Fox acknowledges there is some risk with the program, and is allowing people to cancel after 6 months if it isn’t working. I’ll be curiously watching to see how it goes, especially as some of the bells and whistles Fox is going to throw at this are very intriguing.

The folks from Trulia are listening

Steve Belt — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:48:04 +0000

The response from yesterday’s post regarding my decision to go on strike against Trulia Voices has been amazing to say the least. Within hours, both Jonathan Dalton and Jay Thompson had joined the picket lines.

At that point, I decided Trulia deserved fair notice, so I sent an email to the PR department at Trulia, advising them of our decision, with links to all 3 posts. Just a few hours later, Pete Flint, Founder and CEO of Trulia himself, was found commenting on all of our blogs. This is one of the great things about the Web 2.0 world we now live in. We can have an absolutely fantastic discussion, with all of the right players, right out in the open for everyone to see. Transparency indeed.

With such a captive audience, I want to discuss how I think Trulia can make Voices better, along with the various methods I’ve already seen discussed.

OPTION 1

Jay suggests simply doing away completely with any type of ranking system for a Voice. He contends it isn’t need to encourage participation. Or more importantly, it isn’t needed to encourage healthy, helpful participation.

OPTION 2

Athol Kay suggests that Trulia look closely at the Player versus Player ranking systems found in today’s most sophisticated massively multi-player online games. I’m guessing he’s talking about World of Warcraft or possibly Guild Wars when he suggests this.

OPTION 3

Jonathan suggests that for now, agents use their blog, along with questions left via email or on comments, as the safest way to get accurate, local advice for buyers and sellers from real estate professionals

OPTION 4

And finally, Pete has roughly described a complicated algorithm that the engineers at Trulia are working on that they feel will better rank the Voices, to take into account some of the problems we’ve highlighted.

Of all of these suggestions, with an eye on improving Trulia Voices, I like Option 1 the best.

However, completely getting rid of any ranking is a bit harsh. There is certainly merit in having a system that rewards Voices that continually provide high quality content. So here are a couple of suggestions for how the system can be improved:

First, like Jay suggests, there shouldn’t be any ranking system that allows me to manipulate it to achieve a better ranking. I disagree with Pete and Athol that using some form of extremely complicated algorithm that does the ranking automatically is the solution. No matter how sophisticated, the underlying mechanism is there, and people will learn to exploit it.

Instead, if Trulia decides to move forward with a system that recognizes the better Voices, I would suggest this system be used only to identify candidates. Once a candidate Voice is found, a human being or team of people should review the body of work from that Voice, and if appropriate tag that Voice with some moniker.

Microsoft does this on their TechNet forums with the MVP tag. I’ve come to rely on the Small Business Server forums and I know that when I get a response from an MVP, I’m likely to be getting good advice. Aside from this tag or moniker, I’d prefer to see no ranking at all. The moniker approach still creates a popularity contest problem that may be problematic over time as a gripe between the haves and the have-nots. If that’s something , then just going to every Voice being equal is far better than any type of ranking system in my book.

I also think Trulia needs to implement a system by which answers and questions can be identified as inappropriate, so that they can potentially be removed, and when necessary, the person involved can be reprimanded in some way. Many public forums have “report this” type features, but craigslist is an easy example to point to. I’ve seen reported postings on craigslist get removed. The same with reported profiles on myspace. It works. It needs humans to manage it, as it isn’t automatic, but the community is happy to see the inappropriate content removed.

Finally, I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal today when a reporter found my blog. I essentially restated my position, but I added the following: I want to be a part of high quality content on the web. When Trulia Voices is providing consistently quality content, I’ll be back. Greg Swann said much the same thing about the Bloodhound blog yesterday, in regards to how he goes about recruiting new authors. A significant factor in my participation is in the overall quality of the content.

Opting out of Trulia Voices

Steve Belt — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:48:04 +0000

On Monday I wrote about a radio ad that offered bad advice for people that live in Phoenix. The ad was most likely created as part of a national advertising campaign, which was sold to affiliates across the US. Apparently no one bothered to check whether the ad was truly appropriate to the entire national listening audience.

In a similar, but professionally more damning trend, Real Estate Professionals are doing the exact same thing over on Trulia Voices. In my opinion, the popularity contest that is Trulia Voices has agents working desperately to increase their stats so they will appear to be the Voice that should be heard. The trend I am seeing is that some professionals are so overzealous in their desire to answer every question they possibly can, that they answer many questions they definitely should not.

And I’m not the only one seeing this trend. Jay Thompson has pointed it out often enough, as has Jonathan Dalton. Last week, I asked the Trulia Voices community if the community at large saw this trend, and whether Trulia should make any type of change that might limit people from answering questions. 100% of respondents did not want to see any limits put in place to their ability to answer questions. Police ourselves everyone said.

Bah.

That philosophy isn’t working. Instead, many questions are answered with conflicting information, wrong information, sometimes illegal information, and/or nothing but a lame “Consult your local REALTOR” or “Call me” response. And this type of behavior will continue, so long as there is nothing that will reasonably deter it from continuing.

In response, I’ve decided I can no longer associate myself with Trulia Voices. I look at it as an example of guilt by association. If I blindly continue to ignore the problem, in effect I am part of the problem, not the solution.

My concern over the problem isn’t that I’m losing the popularity battle. I’ve already explained how easy it is to win that battle. My real concern is how bad I look in the eyes of the consumer. But even more so, how bad every Voice looks. I can’t imagine how a person that truly wants to know about the quality of the schools in 85255 feels when they hear for the 7th time, “talk to a local REALTOR”. It’s pathetic. It makes me look pathetic, and I don’t like looking pathetic.

I’ve looked over the toolset available to me for being part of the solution, and all I can find is the thumbs down button. The problem with this approach is I don’t see where that affects my rating. I’ve been thumbed down a few times (usually when I offer conflicting advice, or point out another’s erroneous advice), and my rating doesn’t seem to be adversely affected. There isn’t a big neon sign flashing over my avatar that says, “This guy get’s thumbed down a bunch, don’t listen to him.” It seems to me I could have 100% thumbs down answers, but if I had 2000 answers right now, I’d be the #1 rated Voice in Trulia, since the Trulia rating system gives so much merit to the number of answers. Moreover, the thumbs down approach means I’m playing bad cop, and I don’t want to play bad cop. I thought I was coming to Trulia Voices to help people. I could also start some nice flame war style discussions in Trulia Voices, but does that really help anyone? How does it help me? I think it would just make me look like an ass. And I don’t want to look like an ass.

So I’ve decided the best solution for me is to opt out. I’m not going to answer questions from Trulia users at Trulia Voices any longer. If I find a question I like, that I want to discuss, I’ll discuss it here. I suppose you could say, I’m on strike from Trulia Voices. If the folks at Trulia can find a way to more meaningfully rate the Voices, and (more importantly) dissuade people from working outside of their area of expertise, then I will be happy to opt back in.

Oh, I should thank Heather Barr for helping me come to the decision to opt out last Friday over lunch.

Google launches Street View in Scottsdale and Phoenix

Steve Belt — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:55:48 +0000

Today, Google rolled out its controversial Street View to Scottsdale and Phoenix. Street View allows Google Map users the ability to see select city streets right down on the street level. It’s amazing to see/use as seen here:

To enable street view, you go to Google Maps, and then select the Street View choice (circled in red here). Not all streets in Scottsdale and Phoenix offer street view, but you can tell which do, because those streets are highlight by a blue border.

The shot above is looking West bound on Indian School Rd at the corner of Scottsdale Rd. You can see Starbucks there on the SW corner. Many times, the images wash out as you see here, and the frame stitching is apparent in nearly every view, but it’s still an amazing application of technology. I can see how this would be particularly handy when you are planning to visit some place new. You Google the location in Street View, and now you’ll know what the building looks like you are about to visit. For example, here’s the store front to the S R Brennen Gallery (my favorite art gallery) in old town Scottsdale:

Google seems to have prioritized commercial and shopping districts with the initial roll out of Street View. However, in downtown Phoenix, neighborhoods like the historic Coronado district are fully represented.

The controversy of Street View stems from the fact that some of the images captured and stitched together include people going about their daily lives. Zoomed in the people are potentially recognizable, but may not have wished themselves to be visible. I can imagine that if I were sunbathing in my own pool (the last time I did that, was over 20 years ago), I wouldn’t want the world seeing it on Google.

Still, for the way I envision myself using the tool, I think it’s great. As long as Google has a way of someone requesting a “compromising” image be removed, then I think they’ve really got a useful tool that should be able to have true staying power.

New blog helps FBS gather input for ARMLS Subscribers

Steve Belt — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:42:02 +0000

You have to hand it to Greg Swann over at Bloodhound Realty. Within hours of finding out that FBS Data Systems had won the contract to replace Tempo with it’s own flexmls for use by ARMLS subscribers, he had created a new blog focused on that topic. The blog is titled Phoenix Real Estate Technology Exchange.

Many of the Bloodhound Blog contributers are already signed up as authors for the new blog, as well as some welcome additions. Most notably, Michael Wurzer, President and CEO of FBS Data Systems, is a contributor, which gives anyone that wants to share their thoughts about the new MLS software direct access to perhaps the most influential person they could possibly ask for. For me, the best part about Michael’s involvement, is that it is early enough in the development cycle that we may see changes made to the flexmls system (if changes are necessary) prior to it’s implementation.

As an ARMLS subscriber, I can think of a number of things about ARMLS I wish were changed. First off would be the number and quality of photographs in the system. But for a property owner, or prospective property owner, I do wonder what features they wish were in MLS?

The tough part with this question, is that most people see MLS through a tainted lens most commonly referred to as an IDX. Every agent or brokerage website that has the ability to search MLS is doing so via an IDX. An IDX is a data interchange that pulls data from an MLS, and then allows web users to search on that data. The IDX will usually have a limited search capability, defined by the most likely search needs for the user. The IDX will also not display all of the information for a listing found in MLS. Things like showing instructions, co-brokerage agreements, days on market, etc., aren’t shared with the public.

Another feature of TEMPO that a few agents use is the client gateway. This is the only direct access the public has to the current TEMPO software. The gateway is the result of a custom search that has been set up by the agent for a specific client. The client is emailed a link to the gateway, where they can view properties that match this search criteria. The agent can indicate properties s/he recommends, and the client can indicate property favorites, possibilities, and outright rejections. The client cannot, however, change or even view the search criteria that gets set up by the agent.

At any rate, I’m reasonably certain that the general public would like more and better quality photos, but what else would you want? If you have an opinion, stop by the Phoenix Real Estate Technology Exchange and share it now.

ARMLS to use FBS Data Systems flexMLS

Steve Belt — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:48:24 +0000

Thanks to Jay Thompson, I found out that:

Arizona Regional MLS has entered into a three-year contract with FBS for our flexmls� Web MLS system to replace the current system.

Can you say wow? Well, if you’re a subscriber to ARMLS you probably should. The only negative I can find is we have to wait until July 1, 2008, before we get the new system.

Although I had visited the FBS Blog on occasion, I’m subscribed now so I can keep a closer track of the progress.