TRANSPARENT REAL ESTATE (www.TransparentRE.com)

Why Twitter is Potentially a Mainstream Media Killer App

2008-05-16T13:45:48Z

Friend Tony Grey posts a great article on Active Rain on why Twitter doesn't fit in with real estate lead generation. His points are valid considering the state of Twitter today, essentially Twitterers only congregate amongst themselves and are not broadcasting to a consumer base.

First, most of the folks that state they don't understand or are puzzled by Twitter either haven't tried Twitter or have just dipped their toes in it. Conceptually, Twitter didn't make sense at its inception last year even for a few of its most ardent fans today. The reason? Simply, the questions and criticism that arise from disruptive technologies like Twitter are rooted in the perception that the technology isn't integrated within the mainstream, the status quo culture.

True, Twitter now stands out there as a lone medium disconnected with the consumer internet. However, Twitter has reached a first level of critical mass where the communities (such as technology, Wall Street, celebrity and real estate) have congregated. Bloomberg, NYTimes MSNBC Business and other media are already extensively broadcasting Twitter feeds. I have discussed why Twitter is an ideal syndication "ticker tape" tool for news media, and it's easy to automate distribution. (Tip: read "How we use Twitter for Journalism")

That said, the second level of critical mass will happen when Twitter filters into mainstream media and fits into local news media distribution. The SF Chronicle and other local media are already testing the Twitter medium. Go to SFChron_Alert and note who they are following (see a partial list below, I notice they like following the earthquake twitterers for breaking news...). Note also they haven't figured out Twitter yet and aren't broadcasting like the NYT does.

	mercrethink You are now following mercrethink
	PinoyPod PinoyPod's updates are protected. We've sent a follow request for you.
	sfc_justinbeck You are now following sfc_justinbeck
	latimesbreaking You are now following latimesbreaking
	FTmedianews / FT.com media news You are now following FTmedianews

Where Twitter and MSM are headed

Now, let's review a few of Tony's premises about Twitter's shortcomings for business purposes, and reposition Twitter presence assuming local media goes full bore mainstream into Twitter (or any other micro-blogging application that is Twitter-like):

No easy or quick way for customers to find you or for you to find them

Local media like SF Chron will eventually develop Twitter feeds for business, sports, real estate, etc... maybe they will be called SFChron_sports, etc. Once these feeds are set up, SF Chron will have to follow other Twitterers who are reporting on these topics, and real estate Twitterers are good candidates for the real estate topic. Consumers will then follow any recommendations made by branded mainstream media like SF Chron.

Twitter is designed to be very public

Tony states it is hard to engage a potential lead into a one-on-one conversation, but an agent Twitterer does not want to do that on Twitter. Web 2.0 in its blog and Twitter formats develop neutral channels for information exchange that become part of the agent's maketing oeuvre. The consumer factors the generous exchange, both social and practical, into their hiring decisions, and that's when leads are converted.

140 characters is too limiting for a marketing message

However, in aggregate, the Twitter stream of data valuable to a reader develops that marketing message. For example, a San Francisco Realtor can link the reader to Socketsite (Adam, why aren't you on Twitter?) or Curbed SF reviews of homes in San Francisco. The best part about Twitter is its unobtrusiveness... readers can ignore it until they find something of interest. Twitter applications like Twhirl deliver a useful ticker tape like experience of real time Twitter feeds.

Most people on Twitter aren't customers

True... but the customers are all lurking in the background, they just aren't on Twitter yet. Web 2.0 is engaging the consumer base... the value of real time real estate reporting on a local level needs to be demonstrated to the consumer and who best to do that then mainstream media? It's like Zillow, Trulia and Facebook... eventually a critical mass of consumers will make the applications relevant for business purposes.

Conclusion: Twitter is certainly not for everybody... it helps if you're already conversational and witty. I generally don't small talk about dinner and stuff, but use Twitter to relay new information to the "congregation", so I'm just creating my own ticker tape.

Twitter is another Web 2.0 construct that fits well into mainstream media reporting and it behooves a Web 2.0 engaged real estate professional to grab a descriptive Twitter name like SFRealEstate, park it and prepare for the emergence of this media.

Superlist of free web tools

2008-05-16T01:00:06Z

Here is a superlist of articles compiled in only the past week that list free web tools (and we're not even counting those ubiquitous SEO tools). Whether you're a Web 2.0 newbie or a veteran, a quick scan through these lists will surprise you with all sorts of useful applications. Bookmark this in case you need to find these tools later.

Why is this superlist so curious? The web has become so powerful an educational media that in the span of one week, these articles in aggregate provide the essential knowledge I myself would give to get someone up and running as a web worker.

And here's the twist - parts of these lists will eventually become obsolete even within a few months as more cutting edge tools emerge... just look at the spawning of Twitter and its Twitter tools. The speed of web innovation is remarkable... when everything is developing in "real time", the act of "updating" begins to lose its meaning. Simply create a new list in real time.

BASICS

5 Tools Everyone Working Online Should Have - Read Write Web 5/9/08
highlights: basic, important stuff - multi-service IM, web sharing, Google customized search engine (Rembex is customized for real estate search), start page and blog.

Top 6 Web Tools That Increase My Productivity - Melissa Attree 5/9/08
comments: explaining very simply the utility of Google Reader, Google Alerts, Twitter, Facebook, del.icio.us and Slideshare.

UTILITIES THAT SHOULD SURPRISE YOU

Home Office Warrior's Essential Tools - Home Office Warrior 5/14/08
highlights: Jott, Remember the Milk syncs with Google Calendars to remind you of tasks, GrandCentral.

39 Web Based Tools that Don't Require Registration + Best Screen Capture Tools - Go2Web2.0, 5/7/08 and 5/13/08
highlights: a comprehensive variety of online conversion and editing tools for audio, video and jpegs. For example, mypictr easily creates social networking avatars from snapshots, resizr resizes pictures.

MOVING TOWARDS THE EDGE

Top Ten Most Useful Twitter Tools - Hello Giri - 5/10/08
comment: the # of tools that have suddenly popped up to interpret, elucidate and quantify Twitter are indications of its powerful adoption curve. Add Blown Mortgage /TurnHere's Morgan Brown Tweetsmart to tag twitter comments across categories.

Why mainstream media should be developing online real estate magazines

2008-05-13T23:00:00Z

A few days ago, I noted that the new and most relevant online real estate magazines are best exemplified by blog properties like Agent Genius or Bloodhound. Mainstream media should be playing this card - building their own local real estate magazines - because they already have the consumer traffic base and can leverage their brand names to capture real estate readers.

Newspaper publishers

Screenwerk cites the local online newspapers' trend to "site diversification" in order to capture more relevant local traffic. Greg Sterling's main point:

Newspaper sites cannot accomodate all the various local uses cases and newspapers need to build or buy (if they can) other sites that will. The Gannett Mom sites (e.g., IndyMoms) are a great example of the strategy. Make the newspaper sites as usable as possible but build other sites (demographically focused, vertical, etc.) for content and ad distribution.

Real estate fits this paradigm. Newspaper sites or companies like Planet Discover or Pluck that syndicate content to online newspapers can create local "real estate magazines" to supplement the standard "Sunday" listings. The key is to find the local real estate writers, and that's where the bloggers come in. They welcome participation because the newspapers offer another syndication source, usually for free, for their content.

Newsrack real estate print publications

Beyond mainstream media, what about those local newsrack real estate publications? With print newspapers back pedaling towards extinction, aren't their print business models also becoming obsolete? Wouldn't they be ideal for an online makeover?

It's hard to change a revenue model. Real estate print publications are stuck in the old publishing paradigm that charges an advertising rate schedule to their real estate agent clientele based on impressions from circulation. Although the model has been updated to include online impressions, the game is still centered around listings and broker/agent advertising.

For example, Homes and Land is an established brand newsrack name. They have integrated their ad offering to include both online and print. Yet, try to find their online magazine; go ahead click "Free Magazine" and the application forces the user to fill in all their contact details, including the type of house the user is looking for. And now I'm on their leads list (and I feel tricked):

Thank you for visiting HomesAndLand.com
Select vendors may contact you within two to three weeks with information and assistance regarding your relocation plans.

Counting impressions/leads in order to support the "circulation" numbers that sell ads is an old newspaper game.

The point here is - H&L is already a real estate magazine in most metro markets. They are well positioned to develop local real estate magazines and recruiting local real estate bloggers for supplemental content. All the while, they can continue with their ad-based revenue model until their online real estate magazines gain traction. Then these magazines will provide the traffic/circulation numbers to make them relevant marketing vehicles for their clients... and hopefully they can get rid of those annoying lead capture screens.

Why don't they do this?

REO / Foreclosure Online Resources

2008-05-13T08:56:11Z

Six months ago, I wondered why there were very few bloggers focusing on the REO/foreclosure markets. Last quarter, even in markets like Minneapolis not usually associated with the CA/AZ/FL foreclosure debacle, foreclosures and short sales accounted for 27% of home sales. Since the beginning of the year, a lot of resources have popped up - International Listings compiled a comprehensive foreclosure investors' online resource guide of 100 sites.

The Real Online Real Estate Magazines

2008-05-11T08:55:06Z

I recently noticed Agent Genius's (new?) tagline " a National Real Estate Magazine". It's the perfect metaphor for how blogging is converging into mainstream media under the guise of a "magazine" format. Magazine 2.0, using Wordpress, drives down the cost of an online magazine to insignificance, and positions Agent Genius as a real estate media property (in the old world, Oprah spent $20 million to launch her national magazine...)

Note the intuitive difference between online newspaper and magazine. Inman News, Realty Times and RISMedia have always been positioned as news sources or networks with a mission to provide journalist quality and factual reporting (umm... some do this better than others). Magazines, on the other hand, aggregate articles and provide perspectives and subjective interpretations, making their online equivalent ideal for blogger authors. Both online formats attract readers in the same way people read both the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine.

Greg Swann pioneered the positioning of a real estate blog as national media with his recruitment of a national author crew (taking his cue from Rain City Guide, which has been positioned as a Seattle resource). Now, six seven blogs have distinguished themselves with a growing cadre of authors:

Rain City Guide
Bloodhound Blog
Geek Estate - real estate technology
Agent Genius
Lenderama - mortgages
Bigger Pockets - real estate investing
HomeGain blog - real estate marketing

Special note: Inman has been the most progressive in developing a property that combines news, blogging and a social network.

This is what makes these "magazines" compelling - readers are pulled in by the character of the community. The blogging authors become the brand... the reader can expect different perspectives and conversations on Bloodhound and Agent Genius, and their intersections can be an amusing watch. The reality is each is establishing a brand that will have more impact in the community than any Realtor Magazine or other canned content real estate site.

Next, I discuss how the online real estate magazine becomes a localized marketing paradigm.

Adjusting the credit score goalpost in an upside down market

2008-05-09T01:17:21Z

Forbes.com's Maurna Desmond's May 8 article calls Alt-A loans "subprime in sheep's clothing". In short, crumbling housing prices will push more mortgages into default simply because even relatively affluent borrowers may not stick around once equity turns negative.

The "walkaway" factor has changed the reliability of credit scoring. The FICO score has been an accurate indicator for default risk. Now, the more important default indicator may be the personal debt-to-value ratio (that FICO scores do partially factor in), which requires a marked-to-market home valuation (and I don't think the credit bureaus use Zillow). Thus, the credit scoring system has loopholes... for example, a borrower with negative equity can accumulate credit card lines in order to continue to pay their bills on time and support their FICO scores, up until the day of reckoning when either their debt resources run out, or they just walkaway.

I don't think the major credit bureaus can change their existing formulas to reflect higher default risks based on debt-to-market value, and this undermines their credibility. Perhaps this is one reason why lenders have been ultra-cautious approving loans - the rules of the valuation and risk management game have changed too much for bureaucratic loan underwriters, who are used to following rigid loan guidelines that in a minority of cases may not applicable to today's topsy turvy market. So the baby goes out with the bathwater.

Global cooperation to support the dollar

2008-05-08T09:56:54Z

The media has been sighing with relief that the greatest depression since the 1930's doesn't seem likely. However, global inflation remains an elephant in the room threat (Goldman Sachs analyst predicts $200 oil by year end ), and it's encouraging to see the world banks working in concert to ensure a stronger dollar to keep inflation at bay:

Europe and US unite on stronger dollar (FT)
All about the dollar - what the currency strategists think

(despite the fact that today, ECB's Trichet isn't signaling lower interest rates on Europe's side in order to combat inflation, causing a dollar dip)

But we're certainly not out of the dark forest yet, none other than George Soros claims we're in a bear market rally that will tip back into despair:

The Wall Street Journal writes that Soros recently said “The markets are breathing a sigh of relief but the fallout in the real economy is only now beginning.” Soros does not even bother to say that there is any light at the end of the tunnel.

Mortgages take the stage on real estate sites

2008-05-07T13:45:30Z

Homethinking, the leading real estate agent review site, adds an application for accessing lender data compiled within the Federal Reserve's Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) database for the year 2006. Although the data is old, it reveals geographic distribution of loan amounts, subprime usage and specific lender activity by county.

The implication of the data is to understand the counties where subprime and its associated rate resets will be significant. Homethinking's Niki Scevak and Inman News' Matt Carter describe the data and impact in more detail.

Up to now, real estate listings sites have relegated their mortgage offerings to affiliate mortgage applications that have become recognized by consumers as (annoying) lead generation tools. With mortgages so hard to get lately, real estate sites like Zillow look to offer more innovative products like their mortgage match up service to cater to the consumer. Another valuation modeling site Cyberhomes will eventually leverage their parent company Fidelity National Title's title data to provide customized consumer-facing mortgage products because they can track users visiting their site, which valuations are checked and then deduce how serious the client might be for a mortgage. A friend at a real estate portal mentions to me that he's hearing more pitches on mortgage products since Zillow Mortgages launched two months ago. It's the new game in town... expect more announcements.

193 unit San Francisco complex sold at $730/sqft.

2008-05-05T23:43:43Z

SocketSite, San Francisco's property evaluation blog, reports on the $115 million record sale price for a new 193-unit luxury apartment complex in the new Mission Bay, valuing the units at $730/sq.ft. More interesting is the comment stream of readers trying to justify why the purchase was made - examples:

What many of you seem to overlook is that UDR is a publicly-traded, investment grade REIT. Check their public filings - they recently borrowed $200MM at LIBOR+85. That's 3.6%. If that's the cost of capital on this project, it may well pencil out of the box.
(According to this GlobeSt article, the cap rate is in the mid-4% range)
If the developer can only sell those units individually for $600/sqft, why would they offer $730/sqft?

They understand that rents are going to rise around here for the foreseeable future. Note that the sellers had planned for a 9-month lease-up but they were able to get all 193 units into contract in just 4 months.

The purchase is puzzling considering the 30,000 or so units coming online in SOMA and Mission Bay over the next few years. However, developers may be factoring in San Francisco's Manhattan aspirations - the city wants to zone South of Market for a cluster of as many as seven skyscrapers. Business Week (4/24/08) states Manhattan median home prices jumped 18% in 2008Q1 compared to last year, and attributes new, luxury condos for the increase.

And San Francisco is up and coming as the urban center of a robust technology economy, unlike New York facing a spate of banking job losses.

Related articles:
Manhattanization of San Francisco - part 1
Manhattanization of San Francisco - part 2

Explaining the massive derivatives market and why the Bear Stearns bailout was necessary

2008-05-04T15:36:50Z

With the markets looking a little more rosier these days, we can only remind ourselves of the ghost of Bear Stearns' bail out only 48 days ago. It's still being interpreted. On Saturday, Warren Buffett talked about the bailout, the problems with the derivatives market, and the declining risk of a financial meltdown, and mentioned an incredible statistic that I thought was a typo:

If Bear had failed, one or two other investment banks would probably have collapsed within a few days, he said, adding that Bear had roughly $14.5 trillion of derivative contracts outstanding the day after it was bailed out.

"The parties that had those contracts would have had to establish the damages that they could claim against that estate very quickly," he said. "Imagine the damage of everyone trying to unwind those contracts," Buffett said. "That would have been a spectacle of unprecedented proportions. It would have resulted in another one or two investment banks going down in a few days."

To put this in perspective, the 2008Q1 US Gross Domestic Product is about the same as the value of Bear's derivative contracts - $14.2 trillion. And I agree, a panicked run on $14.5 trillion could have taken out a few banks along the way.

*US commercial banks own about $170 trillion of the total ~$516 trillion derivatives market

I didn't exactly realize how big the derivatives market was vis-a-vis the underlying assets they hedge:

Derivatives let holders bet on or guard against gains or declines in an underlying asset without having to own the asset. They can be tied to things ranging from gold to cocoa, with most based on interest rates and currencies. Swaps, agreements to exchange types of interest payments, make up the largest portion of the market.

The market for derivatives, contracts based on underlying assets, is more than five times as big as global gross domestic product for 2002 as measured by the World Bank. Of the world's largest 500 companies, 92 percent use derivatives to insure against moves in borrowing costs, currencies or commodities, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

Derivatives generally give institutional investors greater flexibility and liquidity for portfolio risk management in exchange for higher leverage that makes them riskier. However, credit tightening has made these markets more illiquid. The Armageddonists have been claiming logically that the derivatives can accelerate a meltdown sparked by a death spiral that could have been initiated with the bankruptcy of several US banks like Bear Stearns.

The economy - false or real optimism?

2008-05-03T11:37:48Z

Two financial luminaries' views on the credit crisis:

Buffett says credit crisis ebbs for Wall Street firms
James Dimon, JP Morgan, says no near end to financial crisis

And on the economy:

From Forbes Rich Karlgaard (admittedly their tech blogger)

Only a month ago, such sages as George Soros and Alan Greenspan were shouting from bullhorns that the 2008 global financial mess was the worst since World War II.

Only a month ago, the only argument among nearly all journalists, pundits and leftwing politicians was whether the U.S. economy would stop at a recession or tumble all the way down the tubes to a 1930s-style depression.

Very few challenged the recession presumption. Now, if your definition of a recession is the traditional one of two consecutive quarters of negative growth, then those very few contrarians are correct. There is no possibility now--zero, nada, zip--that the U.S. will suffer two consecutive quarters of negative growth in 2008.

Points from the gloomy RGE Monitor Dr. Roubini's CNBC Europe interview:

The US is already in a recession, to last 12-18 months
Fed will pause rate cuts over the next couple of months, but the economic contraction will force Fed to cut more later in the year
Contraction of consumption will continue to decrease, affecting the economy
Markets seem decoupled based on continued robust Asian market, but when Americans stop buying Asian goods, Asian markets will also be effected.
Financial sector will continue to be hit in stages from continuing crises to be caused by future writedowns in other credit markets - alt-A, commercial real estate, credit cards, etc.

Consensus? There is none.

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