Latest / Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life / Favicon Santa Clarita open houses and beware of the neighborhood experts self ego driven style
Transcript
- 0:00down to the Favicon I have some of the most important items at my clients fingertips my concept for a real estate website has been evolving since 1998 that was the time when America Online and dial up services were at 56.6 K remember that sound when the internet connected I should do I remember when I first started we had to fill out a sheet called an MLS entry sheet it was very very long it was like the legal type form paper and we had to have it delivered ourselves to the board of Realtors where for an additional $19 or $25 if memory serves and this is the late 90s so forgive me they would then take that sheet and put it into the Multiple Listing Service system and then from there there would be a dot matrix printout generated with all the pages of the current MLS database you'll have all your listings in there that are active you'll have the ones that are in different forms of escrow and then the sold listings this data was taken to the local the local brokers and those brokers they would send somebody to pick it up they would then have this and either they would replace papers or they would then maybe make an entirely new book so it would depend on the office how they would split that up any agents of course would scurry and get the data for their farms those neighborhoods where they touted to be the local expert the agent who everybody used to sell their homes and so on I wanted a website that had a full search function including the market reports for the cities that I am most active in but within all other areas that are serviced by the local boards of realtors where the data is housed I wanted my website to be unlocked so that those visiting could search without having to register for anything I wanted the site to be a guaranteed mine only a singularity where I would not share sell or trade or pass along in his personal anybody's personal or private information I wanted to be secure SSL and encryption enhanced I bought SantaClaritaOpenhouses.com and I have that site running on an I house web platform I wanted to update as soon as possible when new listings were added via the Multiple Listing service taken off sold entered escrow or with any other change in its status I also needed it to have a robust blog where I can write articles like this one put up my YouTube videos so my clients could view what I'm talking about and when somebody asks questions like Connor how do I know what I'm gonna be paying to sell my house if I'm selling it at $750,000 I can then link to it as I have in this particular blog post looking back in the neighborhood expert thing that seemed to be a monopoly of sorts when I first got in the business and it still kind of exists today though the veil's been removed and being the local area expert is valuable but it tends to create unfair competition between other listings if you as an agent have a home listed for sale and one of the neighbors calls to list theirs how are you going to serve two masters on the same block and now apparently on the same street who are you competing with you're competing each seller against the other seller if those happen to be the only two listings of the neighborhood or if you happen to have a monopoly in the entire area if this is your way that's fine I understand it but when it's entirely another agent you well as I that's a much better match you're not fighting yourself you're fighting somebody else in the business when that other agent want is one of the same I say there's one of those sellers they might not get the best advice some can do it well I suppose there's always an exception to the rule I continue to think out loud as a result those who know me my from the hip style and don't have any issues with it others well I'm sure I won't be working with them anytime soon I did a post the other day due to the changes in the real estate commissions and concessions sellers offerings and online displays of commission amounts being halted by the boards of Realtors the blog post that I just hyperlink to in this particular article at my blog at SantaClaritaopenhouses.com above and beyond the typical I'm a top 1% realtor yes if a Realtor closes only a few deals with all the licenses out in the world and all the Realtors out in the world they're not as active as you may think that selling a few puts most agents in the top 1% of Realtors nationwide especially in the more expensive markets selling a single home for a million bucks here in LA can cause an agent very close to being in the top of 1% of Realtors nationwide it sounds like a fantastic counting mechanism oh yes I'm in this game I'm at this level but it's made up to be due to getting the proverbial postcards and door hangers even some span emails and text messages come through touting that they are the No. 1 neighborhood expert they've been commissioned by your homeowners association and by your neighbors by those who live on your streets to be agents who can sell your home the best do the large amounts of closings and the relationships they have with the other local agents who have a multitude of buyers for your home in fact they too will say they have a buyer for your home bring them over let me meet them I'll let you handle the deal I'll play you a fat a flat fee and you can represent both of us how does that sound after the agent picked up the phone dropping it because of the shock of being called out on their bluff or that buyer is not ready to go making the contract valid at the time initiated some agents play these old games others have moved their bait and switch within the online channels some syndication websites have what homes are worth with unclear algorithms running when I check values of course all the value sets I checked are gonna be balanced against the multiple listing service the actual closings and in there I can see how the recordings happen what type of loans were used how long it took what the concessions amounts were those are those things that the sellers are gonna be selling to keep the buyer interested in the transaction maybe the buyer finds something with an escrow something they discover with the house and then have a contractor or another official go out look at the problem that's been revealed and then they go back to the seller and say would you mind taking care of this and depending on the seller and their attitude and the buyer's attitude up to that point and what the problem is sometimes it gets taken care of I get to see those numbers some of this indication websites either they omit the data or don't see the data whatever it is it does skew the value somewhat and in some cases apparently a lot now of course I check these systems out there because my sellers are checking their values as well of course I use them because my sellers are I need to be prepared for their version of the amplifying of the data to solicit some decision for a seller or buyer decisions that a waste to the home seller wanting to sell because they see an over inflated price or a home buyer seeing a deal too good to pass up all are showed due to a tweaking of the real estate syndication website's program when somebody wants to know their homes value well not all of them are that way but again it's something to at least be wary of anytime you're getting information online by a non verified source you might wanna look at the data set if you can get access to it to be able to make a better decision as to where your value should be oh not to mention once you enter your address it's pretty much game over regarding your privacy the online ads that are they're gonna be all over your social media you might even get mailers and my sellers have when I had anonymously act what asked what their home is worth the data then gets captured then all of a sudden it brings that particular address into the forefront and then the real estate syndication company is going to be able to leverage that itty bitty bit of information just a simple inquiry and try to bring about an agent converting that particular seller or buyer to being their client and they pay handsomely for it I assure you now when you get these mailers anonymously asking what their home is worth the data gets captured with a few cross checks on those data mining websites they have your email your address and your phone number and more information they gather than you can possibly imagine then if you dare click on one of those new ads and see for the first time after you're your home is worth inquiry you just drove that final nail into the coffin I have to tell you you have been identified in ages paying for your information will be using interruption month marketing to reach you out maybe with a buyer ready to go as we talked about I have had more great experiences not being the local neighborhood expert coming into an area and getting those sellers more for their homes because I'm working for them not trying to build some reputation and my glory that is very much self serving and ego driven I don't play golf and I sure don't with others in my business I know that connections help real estate transactions I found that when I don't know anybody anything by sellers and buyers get the best benefit no favors just a facts man to quote Joe Friday my favicon it's simple and it says it all when I write and publish a post which is on most days of the week I do it based on the questions my clients have had in the past I give stories like this one and coming into an area where a single agent has been the go to for many years breaking form and ending up making a record sale higher than any past sales and this may be to an agent who is also not that local neighborhood expert either but he has clients or she has clients who have been trying to break in but could not do to well factors unknown life is funny isn't it I'll tell you this there are many reasons why you should hire the best for the job and those reasons should start that if you even like what your agent is saying online on their blog if they're relying 100% on social media I think that's an issue due to less accountability it's easy to do 15 seconds it's hard to read a complete blog post that I put together over time on my website at Santa Clarita Openhouses com and then to extrapolate even more information from the text to help my buyers and sellers make their better more educated real estate decisions I write every article with my fingers I type them myself I may inquire about converting real estate stats that I generate within my Real Estates Multiple Listings Service statistical data system within chatGPT but this is definitely to a minimum I don't want any skewed data hallucinations coming around and sometimes that happens with these large language models as far as what a home is worth I run that interference for you I use my account so I get the data but beyond that you will be instructed to not click on any ads pertaining to your social media due to the search I ran because they're gonna probably appear on your end if those dots are connected and it will be research so be wary I'm Connor with honored let me know how I can serve you we'll see you on the next one over and out do they I guess then talking to those people who hire them