I did a blog on a company called Redfin a couple of weeks ago. Today I was catching up on some industry reading and heard that a company called Trulia received $10,000,000 in venture capital.

Trulia is almost a nationwide company, Redfin is located in Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Deigo and Orange County California. They have cool features, just like ChangingStreets.com has had for years, they do a little better job making it pretty but that is what a couple million in venture capital will do.

Trulia gets just over 1,000,000 visits a month on their website and the average person stays for 8:02 minutes and looks at 13 pages.

Redfin gets just over 47,000 visits a month and the average person stays for 10:25 minutes and looks at 22.3 pages.

ChangingStreets.com is located in the thriving metropolis of Flint Michigan, population 463,000. ChangingStreets.com gets over 24,000 visits a month, the average visitor stays for 16:36 and looks at 63 pages.

If one were to look at population ratios and put that into traffic statistics....mmmmmm. Not bad results for a bank account versus Venture Capital and a team of three leading the development vs a team. Benchmark Capital, Sequoia Capital are you out there? Not bad numbers, we have a pool of great developers looking for work, a great ideas and solid backgrounds.

These numbers are from Compete.com. Check it out, it is very cool. Compare Real estate websites before you list your home. Realestateagentname.com doesn't work.

It has been a while since I have had the time to look over Genesee County Stats. Tonight I did and here is what I came up with:

1707 homes have sold in Genesee County this year, 1919 through the end of May 2006, so we will be close.

In 2006 roughly 512 of these sales were foreclosures, so far this year...650. OUCH!

That leaves 1057 "civillian" sales for 2007 against 1407 last year. Number of listings on the market right now? 5959. How many of these are foreclosures? 733.

Yes that leaves a 24 plus month supply of "civillian" homes on the market and about 6 months of foreclosures.

The good news is prices are great for buyers. The average sales price of a "civillian owned" home is down to $130,161 net sales price. That is the sales price minus seller paid costs. For all of you bargin shoppers the average ask price was $138,109 so about $8,000 of or 6%. Not bad.

Interest rates are reasonable, but will rise over the next 3 months, they always do in the summer, but they will again fall.

Once again Buddy Kane nailed the prediction of tight money on subprime mortgages a couple of months ago, easy money for bad credit and nothing down is gone.

One suprise, Lake Fenton. A ton of listings. 61, two are foreclosures. 11 of them are priced over $1,000,000! To put that into perspective, since 2000 there have been 195 sales with 8 of those over $1,000,000 and only three over $1,275,000. There are now 7 priced over $1,275,000 and three over $2,000,000. Beautiful homes no doubt. Two of the greatest homes on the lake are currently listed, both real high in price but I never thought either one would ever hit the market. And the sewing circle is buzzing that there will be two high priced newer homes going for sale on the court house steps soon. How will the banks react to having to deal with a 10 year supply of million dollar homes for sale on one lake?

Check out Lake Fenton Homes For Sale here.

I watched 60 minutes the other night and saw the segment about a real estate company named RedFin.

The very ambitious owner says he is changing the real estate industry. Cool it needs it.
But is giving the backbone of the industry away for free the way to do it? I don’t think so. I want the business to change but I am willing to do heavy lifting to do it. Manipulating the MLS system is not heavy lifting. The MLS, Multiple Listing Service, was developed by Realtors as a tool for Realtors. We at ChangingStreets.com have never messed with this, it belongs to practicing Realtors. Our for sale by owner listings have never gone in the MLS, they shouldn’t, they are for sale by owner.

Companies that think they can change by cheating are wrong. Can you imagine how angry big car dealers would be if I got a deal with GM to sell cars and trucks with out having to build a dealership, employ customer care employees, but I could use the tools the dealers built to do it? Bad Idea.

Why can’t RedFin create its own market place? ChangingStreets.com did. It is thought that 80% of homebuyers in Genesee County visit our site and web traffic rankings and sales results could put it higher than that. That is why our true FSBO program works, two sold last week, we have build a market place. Our full service listing team has the highest success ratio in the area, why, we built a market place. And consumers have the choice of which one to use.

How did Redfin get on Sixty minutes, two words: Venture Capital. I admire these guys for trying but come on; they are based in Seattle (great market) and sold less homes than ChangingStreets.com did last year in FLINT! There expansion across the country are agents (one or two in each market) working from home (actually this is pretty smart for a small company, ChangingStreets.com will probably try it).

My point is Changing the way real estate works is two fold: there is the need to create an alternative market place to the MLS. The MLS was created by and belongs to Realtors, it is not a public utility. If it is then so is ABC, NBC & CBS and I want access to programming planners. MLS was created years ago by agents meeting for breakfast and handing out index cards with their listings on them and offering to pay other agents for assistance selling them. Companies like RedFin talk like Realtors but don’t walk like them. Now I am not going to pretend all agents are competent but at least the consumer knows what the agent is suppose to do. At RedFin and many other MLS exploiters the consumer assumes they get services and don’t. That is why there needs to be limited service bills in Real Estate Nationwide. This will not impair competition like the exploiters would lead people to believe it will create better experience for consumers. The biggest Consumer industry with out limited service standards? The Mortgage Industry how is that working out? Terrible, foreclosures are at an all time high, most people have no earned equity in their homes. Pathetic and seriously slimy loan brokers have made a nice living off the sweat and pain of others.

OK the second way is to use the limited service standards and accountability to raise the level of professionalism in our business. Make it difficult for large brokers to hire anyone with a pulse and make them accountable for the actions of their agents. The funny part is that would be best thing to happen to the brokers that would fight it. And yes consumers could speak with their checkbook.

Did you know that ChangingStreets.com is the only “hybrid” company in a decent size US market to be ranked in the top five of all agencies in the market? True. RedFin, no, Zip Realty, no, and they make 60 minutes and our own local newspaper will not even talk about our accomplishments, let alone call us for accurate facts before printing a real estate related story!

Yes I have media envy.

But the bottom line is that cheating the system or exploiting it, or working outside the spirit of it is not changing it.

Has anyone noticed the word Change used a lot when it comes to real estate? Imagine that…..the streets will not look the same.

It is easy to play arm chair quarterback in regards to the problems in real estate, but I am doing something about it.

ChangingStreets.com is an awesome company with awesome people. So awesome in fact we have gotten a lot of attention from real estate industry big timers. I have accepted a senior position at a top ten brokerage in the United States to “implement and prove the viability” of a new business developed by myself and top industry players. We feel we have built a business model that will align the concerns of all principals in a real estate transaction; consumers, agents, mortgage professionals, title providers and brokers.

Unfortunately this sounds like every thing you read today. The reality is this is real. We are heading to one of the best real estate markets in the country working with strong commitments from one of the world’s largest mortgage banks, title companies and real estate brokerages to make the consumer experience more professional and rewarding.

It is an awesome undertaking and incredibly awesome experience, exhilarating, exhausting, frustrating, rewarding, & challenging all at the same time. Changing the thought process of huge companies is not easy, being the new guy doing it is brutal. I am fortunate to working with the brightest people in the business and even with the support that comes with that the challenge as is follows: Go into a market that you have never practiced in, build a business model that has never been done, promote a company that none of the consumers have ever heard of (let alone the agents I am recruiting) and build it to a quarter of a BILLION in sales in 2 years and don’t forget to move your family.

I will keep you posted on how it is going. In the mean time the gang at ChangingStreets.com amazes me every day, up 20% this year in a tough market. The highest listing success rate in the county, #1 in consumer buyer sides in the county, highest unit volume and sales volume per agent in the county and still humbly grinding it out, I could not be prouder. I can brag like this now that I am not there, it is all them.

Which is greater?

97% of $2500 minus 43% of gross in expenses

Or

60% of $2500

This seems pretty easy. Yet there are over 500 people in Genesee County that get this wrong everyday. It reminds me of when I was 7 years old and my dad asked me whether I would rather have $1,000 or a penny doubled everyday for a month. At 7 I wanted the $1,000. By the time I was 9, I figured it out, the doubled penny turned into $10.737,418.24.

The answer to the above question is [2500(.97)]-[2500(.43)]= $1,350

Or 2500(.60)= $1500

Then what would happen if under the 60% formula you actually did this twice while only having the first formula once? $3,000 vs. $1,350. So I guess the trophy of earning 97% gross far out ways the reality of earning only 60%, twice.

I mention this because ChangingStreets.com agents sell twice as many homes than all but one company in the area, our agents do 24 transactions a year the actuall board average is 3.4! But agents selling ten homes a year will brag they make 90% commission. Buddy said to one 90% agents that was bragging up his Career at T Rex (name changed but you get the idea) while bagging Buddies groceries, true story!

Welcome to the world of real estate brokerage. 97% of the agents in America would pick option A, work at a high paying (percentage wise) mediocre brokerage than work for a lower percentage at a great brokerage.

Why is it that in every other industry in the world people specialize? Law Firms have partners that specialize in different aspects of law, Doctors specialize, engineers specialize, yet Real Estate sales agents are a one man army.

We will not debate levels of education. There are some pretty educated in real estate, however on a over all basis they do not come near the combined education of the above professionals’ at the client/patient interaction level.

Why does Real Estate remain this archaic? Because consumers allow it. They assume and tolerate a certain level of service as oppose to seeking the best and demanding service and accountability. So why would real estate agents specialize? The consumer does not demand it.

As a consumer I demand very high standards. I want the best at what he does, not the loudest. I ask for proof, not their word they are capable. This works well, the sleeves on my suits are the correct length, my 401k outperforms the market…..

There is nothing wrong with hiring a professional and letting them work, finding one is the tough part.

As the economy in our area and state is in a state of flux, maybe the easiest way to fix it is for consumers, business and state align their goals, demand the best and demand results.

Or we can take the 97% plan. That has worked great for the last 37 years.

Well what a bummer.

So I nearly died the other day at a showing in Flint/Flushing. Literally died. Like poor little "Thomas J" in MY GIRL. Upon attempting to enter the home we noticed some bees buzzing about. There was a big ol' nest right above the front door. Opening the door would have riled the bees up so we looked at other possible means of entry. Bees everywhere! No entry. A waste of everyone's time. Similar to, but more dangerous than, the missing lockbox key. Come on Sellers! Whether you're a person, a bank or an Agent representing the bank, take care of the bees! You want to let the lawn grow to the windows, fine, we can look beyond that. You haven't the strength to clean the poo up off the hardwood floors, we'll plug our noses and step carefully. But killer bees swarming the property? That's a whole different thing! I hope you noted infesation on your disclosures! At a bare minimum we should be able to view a home without looking danger straight in the eye. Or the stinger.

Okay, maybe I didn't actually almost die. Perhaps I unknowingly took a wrong turn and got lost on the way there and only heard about the bees from my creeped out Buyers who called and told me not to come. But THEY were in danger. One of them was highly allergic. And of more importance to the Seller, they told me not to come. They were no longer interested in purchasing the property. Bummer.

Oh my goodness! Who knew it would take Rock night with Jon Bonjovi to breathe life back into Lakisha's performance!!! Go KiKi! Get your rock on! I hope everyone is voting. Flint was definitely represented tonight... she sang, she conquered, she kissed Simon! Vote! Vote! Vote!