Private Listing Clubs

by | Jul 26, 2019 | Coming Soon, Jim's Take on the Market, Pocket Listings, Realtor, Realtors Talking Shop

I participated in the PLS webinar recently:

We’re excited to be hosting our first ever ZOOM meetup with James Harris (Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles & Founding Partner, ThePLS.com). We’ll be discussing Los Angeles real estate market trends for Q2 (and beyond) and James will be sharing his take on things.

There was a CB realtor from Santa Monica who said his market has slowed down, with many price reductions, fewer multiple offers, and longer market times.  A discussion ensued – my takeaways:

A. The market is level (at best) and sellers need to be realistic.  You can spend a million dollars on advertising, have the best photography and videos, and do open house every day, but if the price isn’t right, it still won’t sell.

B. James thought open houses are a good way to expose a property to the market, and for knowledgeable agents to impress the attendees about the value.

C. James also said that when it’s slower, it’s better to test pricing off-market first. (But wouldn’t it be natural for sellers to say, ‘let’s test the price on the open market to find out for sure.’)

D. When a home is on the open market but not selling, it’s better to lower the price in weeks, not months.

Those sum up the basic fundamentals for today’s market.

I suggested that to enhance the value of private-listing clubs, they should limit membership to the top agents only, but they didn’t want to get into it.  They did like my idea of having more webinars where agents can discuss topics and listings.

The club hasn’t made much of an impact yet in the San Diego area.  There are only 34 listings county-wide on the website, and some are older and/or already sold. Curiously, one had been on our MLS this year, but expired and is now on the PLS only as an off-market opportunity at virtually the same price.

https://thepls.com/

The other large private listing club, Top Agent Network, is limited to the top 10% of agents in a region (based on volume).  They were thinking of opening in San Diego, but I haven’t heard any updates lately:

https://www.topagentnetwork.com/

There may come a day when the private listing clubs have an impact, but it would take their leaders to constantly sell the benefits to agents – and those are people who have become wary about the benefits from the traditional MLS (if any).  If an agent wants to pursue an off-market sale, then it’s too easy for them to throw a sign in the yard and wait (if the price is right).

Nick Lowe

by | Jul 24, 2019 | Wednesday Rock Blogging

The promo video for Nick Lowe’s “Cruel To Be Kind” in 1979 which features footage of his wedding to his first wife Carlene Carter.  It was filmed at the Tropicana Motel in West Hollywood, and Dave Edmunds is the limo driver! (the drum kit was borrowed)

Amazon & Realogy

by | Jul 24, 2019 | Jim's Take on the Market, Realtor, Realtor Training, Why You Should Hire Jim as your Buyer's Agent, Why You Should List With Jim | 4 comments

Thanks to the readers who sent in the news about Amazon and Realogy teaming up to provide a basket of goodies to customers who get their agent through their TurnKey system:

Real-estate brokerage giant Realogy Holdings Corp. launched a new partnership with Amazon.com Inc. on Tuesday, a fresh attempt at jump-starting the property firm’s flagging business and tumbling share price.

Under the new program, known as TurnKey, home buyers searching for an agent on Amazon.com will be directed to a Realogy agent in their market. These buyers get up to $5,000 of smart home devices and free home services from Amazon, from unpacking and cleaning to furniture assembly and smart home setup.

Realogy is hoping the power of the Amazon brand can energize its own amid a prolonged slide in its stock price. The company declined to comment on the agreement’s specific financial terms but said it is footing the bill for the home services from commissions earned from deals that the venture with Amazon is anticipated to generate.

There are many places that offer to provide a realtor for you:

Who pays for the service?

The agents do, and it can be a hefty referral fee – usually 25% to 40% of the commission.

However, you don’t get directed to the best agent in the area, oh no. You get directed to the best agent in the area who is willing to pay their fee.

We call this, “Buying The Business” and it’s what agents do who can’t earn the business otherwise.  Either agents can demonstrate their skill-level and abilities to consumers to earn their business, or for the agents who can’t, gimmicks or discounted commissions are used to ‘buy’ their business instead.

It’s just one more thing about the real-estate-selling business that isn’t disclosed to the public.

This gimmick is a way for Realogy to provide leads and keep more of their agent’s commission:

Will the public ever catch on to how the game is played?

The agents who are willing to pay for the leads either don’t have the skills, or can’t demonstrate them.

Going through Zillow isn’t much better. The big realtor teams get the best leads there, and pass them off to their new agents and then take a large chunk of their commission.

Bottom Line:  Agents all look the same, and the industry does nothing to help you differentiate.  You must do your own investigation to find out if your agent has the skills and ability to provide the help you need.

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Let’s say that the Amazon customers who prefer to just click a button for their every need in life plunges ahead without much care about the realtor they get – they just want their goodies.

What do they get?

The dedicated Amazon customer already owns a few of the goodies – most of the equipment listed above is into their 2nd or 3rd generation by now. Only the Ring Doorbell Pro and the Camelot Deadbolt are attached to the house. So if a buyer already owns the other gear, they can take it with them – and receiving duplicates of the Echo Spots, Shows, etc. isn’t much of a prize.

For the casual Amazon customers, do they even want/need the high-tech gear?

Because they aren’t handing you a check for $5,000 – instead, you get some household goodies that can all be bought separately for $100 to $400 each.

Or will click-a-button real estate be enough of a thrill/reward?

One-Year Anniversary @ Compass

by | Jul 23, 2019 | About the author, Coming Soon, Compass, Jim's Take on the Market, Klinge Realty | 5 comments

We’ve been at Compass for one year!

How’s it been, and where are we going?

I was the 160th agent hired in the region.  Now there are 565 Compass agents in San Diego County!

In the beginning, we thought that Klinge-Realty-Powered-By-Compass had a nice ring to it, but it proved to be a mouthful, so we changed to the Klinge Realty Group for ease of use.

We’ve hired Brittnie Dixon to be our licensed assistant.  She has been doing a wonderful job with marketing and special projects!

We’ve joined the company’s sponsorship of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, which means you will see Donna and I in the race program this weekend.

We are also contemplating a move to the office at the La Costa Resort.

We have a new website being developed that should launch in the next few weeks.  I was hoping to combine it with bubbleinfo.com but formatting them together is still being explored.  There will be a blog!

Most of all, I’m glad Compass has a strategy to dominate the real estate universe.  It’s not perfect, but at least we have a strategy!  I’ll get into our Coming Soon program in more detail as time goes on, but consider how the entire industry has rushed to Coming Soons as a primary marketing device.

Want a sample of how the public perception has changed about selling homes?

A consumer (not an agent) said this month, “If you don’t sell your home off-market, and have to put it on the MLS, then people think something is wrong with it…..or the price.”

Inventory Watch

by | Jul 22, 2019 | Inventory

This month the new pendings are hanging with last year’s counts, and with rates being supportive, maybe we’ll see a plateau in the red line above over the next 4-6 weeks?

We can guess why the pendings tapered off after summer – rates were on the run. Today’s rates are among the lowest in recent memory:

How about a late-summer surge!

(more…)

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