Redfin recently released a report that states their agents negotiate better then other agents.
A Year’s Numbers Come in From the MLS: Redfin Agents Negotiate Better

It’s reports like this that get me going…One of my favorite classes in college was stats, so whenever I see reports that create stats based on real estate data, I just go nuts. As soon as I read the report I jumped on the MLS for San Francisco, downloaded all solds from last year hoping to get some good data and respond to this report, but unfortunately only 1 sold SFR had a Redfin agent as one side of the transaction.

BTW, that 1 transaction sold for $2,000 over asking price, so it looks like on average Redfin agents in San Francisco, doesn’t negotiate very well…I’m just kidding, but as you can see this data makes me mad.

Since I have the data from San Francisco, I think I will create some reports based on listing and selling different and the offices. Should be interesting, but again, it will not be a report to make any judgment from, I just like crunching numbers.

Back to the Redfin report. Some of the first questions that I would like to know, which will be impossible to find out is

1. How many homes were sold in Washington? 200 seems like an very low number?
2. how many total offers were submitted by redfin. What is the percentage of homes that had an offer submitted by Redfin, and not accepted?
3. 200 homes sold with Redfin, but you have 247 evaluations? and on top of that 37% of the buyers where first timers…how can a first time home buyer know if the transaction was better then working with a traditional agent? Did you survey the kids too?

I have nothing against Redfin, but this report made me mad. If you go to the blog post on Redfin’s site, look at the comments. There is one comment from a homeowner that talks about how awful it was to work with a traditional agent…yet, they continued to work with that agent? WHY? Real estate is a relationship, if you work better with a tech savvy Redfin Realtor do so, it you want a more traditional agent, then go use one of those, but if you are having problems with your Realtor, dump them…get a Realtor that you work well with…

If you go to a plastic surgeon for a nose job and they mess up, do you go back to the same doctor for a tummy tuck? Obviously some people would!
I think the saying goes, fool me once…

Now onto commissions…Commissions piss me off too, not because they are too high, but because they are completely negotiable. Right now if you ask most agents how much is the average commission, they will probably say 5%. Then ask them “Are they an average agent?”, and I would say that most will say “No, I’m better.”
Then why do you ask for 5%…if you are better, you should ask for 7 or 8%.

I got Trang on this little no win conversation the other day…Bottom line, if you walk into a listing presentation and you tell the seller that most agents get 5% commission (1.25% to them) then tell the seller that you are so good you only sell properties for 8%…AND GET IT, then you and the seller deserve everything you get. if the seller talks you down to 3% and you accept, then that’s how much you are worth. If you don’t want to pay 3% then go to Redfin, or better yet, go to BuySideInc.com where they give you 75% back.

As Rick Geha said at the KW Reunion Last week, “I can line up 100 Realtors and let them all knock the commission down until you get the agent that will sell your home for the lowest price. But do you want that?”

And I guarantee you that no Redfin agent will know more about local market stats then Rick does. Rick also posts on theharperteam.com website, where they guarantee $20K savings…and have some incredible market stats.

So please keep your reports about how much people save, or how good you negotiate to yourself, because you just can’t prove them to be viable.

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This was posted on December 29th, 2006!!! on our MLS access page…problem is I would never had seen it until I actually tried to access the MLS alliance to view listings 5 miles from my house, only to find it gone. Thanks for the warning!!!
This is posted on my MLS

MLS Alliance to Cease Operation January 1

SFARMLS and other MLSs in the Bay Area have been advised by e-Neighborhoods, the MLS Alliance vendor, that it will terminate the service on January 1, 2007. The formation next year of two new MLS entities (Quattro in San Francisco and the North Bay, and NCREX on the northern peninsula and the East Bay) is the likely reason. An effort is being made to put an alternative technical solution in place to allow data to continue to be shared between SFARMLS and REInfoLink on the northern peninsula but that effort may not succeed.

**Wonderful, the most obvious data connection between San Francisco and the northern peninsula might not happen!!!! If you are going to combine MLS’s why not combine them throughout the entire bay area?

In the meantime, SFARMLS users who need access to data from the northern peninsula have two options: (1) Do nothing on the expectation that SFARMLS and REInfoLink will succeed in putting an alternative technology solution in place soon;

**Let me just tell my clients that I’m going to do nothing until something happens…

or (2) Join REInfoLink and, if necessary, the MLSs in the East Bay to assure continued access to that data.

**Oh, yeah, more money solves everything.

We regret the decision of e-Neighborhoods but will do everything possible to minimize its impact on our users.

This is just another reason why I think the only people that are not going to benefit from all the technology advances in real estate are the agents…

Even though the MLS alliance was not a good way to get comps, we could use it to see past sales in the northern peninsula, now we can’t do that and have to use zip realty to view listings 5 miles from my house.

Last year, I moved from the East Bay to San Francisco and joined the San Francisco Board. Even though I still had 6 months left on my East bay membership, they discontinued my access? There was some weird issue with my broker only belonging to the Oakland board…which did not get me access, even though Oakland is part of the east bay…Basically it was very confusing and I never did get my access back, or a refund for the fees (more important to me).

Again, my prediction in 2007 - agents will get tossed around by this huge battle that will take place in the short future between the transparency of real estate and the people that want to keep it privileged information. This is definitely a story I will be keeping up on.

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If you are a San Francisco Realtor an use the public home search tool for your websites, there is a little bug with Firefox browsers. Works fine in IE.

The bug relates to the framed IDX solution they provide. The problem…it does not work in Frames.
If you view in a normal page, works fine. Put it in a frame, and the map returns an error.

Rapattoni released a new version recently, and It is quite nice…but there are some major problems.

1. The main admin section does not work with Firefox Browsers. You can only use it with Internet Explorer. I guess this is not a very big deal. Top Producer is the same way, but I like Firefox, so it’s a big deal to me.
2. It’s slow.
3. this is another personal peev, but why don’t you let the Realtors get a raw data feed???? So they build there own searches. The Realtors are paying for this service, and we are stuck with either buying a 3rd party product for IDX, or we have to use the framed solution from SFARMLS, which is not very good. I know there is a lot to this issue, but personally, Just give Realtors a raw data feed so they can plug it into Google Maps, and make there own search… Only one feed per Broker Office is currently allowed and if a vendor is on record to access the raw feed, you have to try to get access from them…good luck with that!

   The Broker should access this feed, and the broker feeds it to vendors, or a broker should be able to choose how gets the raw data directly from SFARMLS. Everything a realtor does is based around MLS listing. If a broker accessed this feed, all marketing material, print, ads, emails, could be automatically created from this raw data.

 Off my soapbox…Let’s fix this bug

To find your public home search tool, log into www.sfarmls.com, don’t forget to use IE

Go to admin->IDX Search Setup. This is where you can add or remove search fields.

I would suggest removing the mapping until this bug is fixed. Make sure “Map” is in the left column, not the right.

To preview the link go to Admin->Public Access Links. The 3rd link down is your IDX Solution.

Please let me know if you need help with this, or have no idea what I’m talking about. I will be glad to help.

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