Baron Briefs

….as I outlined almost two years ago in our discussion group:

1. Agents/Brokers can leverage our ZIP code notification system to instantly alert agents of an available referral and don’t need to seek out individuals on the Web/mailing lists.
2. Agents/Brokers can leverage AgentRank(TM) to ensure they are handing the referral off to an agent/broker with a proven track record.
3. Agents/Brokers can maximize their potential referral fee by leveraging the auction platform.
4. Agents/Brokers can utilize our feedback system to rate brokers/agents who both offer and accept referrals. Similar to eBay, a feedback system can be nice leverage to keep both parties of a referral transaction honest.

Today, we’re expanding our patent-pending auction platform to include business referrals among Realtors®. The new product, ReferralAuction™, allows real estate brokers and agents to efficiently find and qualify out-of-town agents to handle their referrals.

As a Realtor®, you likely already swap referrals both on-line and off. However, when referring your client to an agent whom you’ve never met, two questions remain:

1. Is the agent qualified to handle the referral?
2. Will the agent pay my referral fee if a deal is done?

A ReferralAuction™ uses the AgentRank™ algorithm to ensure a referral is awarded to an agent who has a proven track record to make a sale.

Both the referral source and recipient have the opportunity to review the performance of each to discourage deceitful behavior.

The following data was taken straight out of the Baron database. It compares the average time a home spends on the market (reported by our agents) versus the average final bid of listing auctions:

It’s quite simple when you think about it: the longer a home sits on the market, the more costs a Realtor incurs.

I’ve got a fantastic idea for a new Realtor product. I’ve never been more excited about the prospect for a new product than this one. If my assumptions are correct, this new product could dramatically change the way Realtors do business. However, my assumptions are just that…assumptions. So, if you are a real estate broker or agent, please consider helping me validate those assumptions by completing the following survey. It only has 7 questions and will likely take you less than 2 minutes to complete:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9MpDZU5c16kiI6CjrmEN0w_3d_3d

If you’re a blogger whose audience includes brokers and agents, please consider linking to the survey. Be sure to leave a trackback in the comments if you’d like to preview the new product once the design is complete.

Thanks in advance for your participation!

vFlyer has assembled an excellent view of Real Estate 2.0. Twenty-six “representative” companies are spread out over thirteen different categories. Zillow tops everyone with four category appearances while Trulia and ActiveRain tie for second with three.

vFlyer was kind enough to include RealtyBaron in the “Reviews” category along with Homethinking and IncredibleAgent.

Note to bootstrappers: don’t sit on a new feature announcement too long or someone with much better funding will grab headlines with a similar feature.

So, rather than appearing as a quick and nimble entrepreneur, I get to appear as an “us too” and prematurely announce our new answer service, RealAnswers(TM), with a side-by-side comparison to Zillow’s new Home Q&A. That’s right. RealtyBaron quietly launched an answer service alongside our home search, RealSearch(TM), way back on January 5th. The purpose is to—you guessed it—answer questions about homes.

Here’s how it compares to Zillow’s new Home Q&A:

Way back in 2004, I launched a free ad generator to help homeowners publish their FSBO listing to Craigslist. The press release read “add color, stylish formatting, and unlimited image hosting for real estate ads on Craigslist.” As it turned out, the tool was used almost exclusively by real estate agents. Unfortunately, I yanked it from the site in late 2005 when RealtyBaron.com underwent a major re-design.

Since then, RealtyBaron’s mission has become clear: “help affiliated real estate agents get to the closing table as much and as quickly as possible”. In other words, if an agent is signed up with RealtyBaron, I want to help that agent close as many deals as possible because it only strengthens our platform to have closers associated with us.

As a result of this mission clarity, I re-launched the ad generator yesterday. Like the old version, the new ad generator automagically provides “color, stylish formatting, and unlimited image hosting”. The new version, however, does not require the agent to copy/paste any code. In other words, the tool allows for seamless ad creation and publishing to Craigslist. Other online classified sites such as Backpage and LiveDeal are in the pipeline.

Here’s an example ad:

An anonymous real estate agent in the comments of Realty Thoughts’ blog pens three things you should avoid doing when selecting your real estate agent:

1. do not choose an agent because they have 8 on a widget on their blog.

2. do not choose an agent based on what strangers have said.

3. do not choose an agent based on how much commission they give back to you before you even enter into a transaction.

Put another way:

1. do not pay attention to the real estate agent’s website or blog. Especially avoid any type of message that summarizes the agent’s track record and differentiates him/her from the hundreds of other agents in your market.
2. do not speak with any of the agent’s previous clients about his/her performance during a transaction. Because they are strangers, their input has zero value.
3. do not negotiate with the agent regarding how much of your own money you get to retain before you hire him/her.

My-Currency.com launched this week to much fanfare. The idea is to generate home values using crowd intelligence. Why does that sound so familiar? Oh, yea. RealtyBaron launched its version of crowdsourcing back in 2004 (before the word ‘crowdsourcing’ was even coined). From our press release:

Estimates generated by IntelligentValue(TM) are composed of price opinions from homeowners and real estate agents in the area in which the property is located. Properties are shown randomly and include an exterior photo, feature descriptions, and an interactive map for easily identifying location. Opinions are applied to estimates daily providing real-time feedback to property owners.

The feature, called IntelligentValueâ„¢, was removed from the website last year for retooling. It will relaunch next month so don’t label us as copycats when you see it again.

Not likely. But some people believe this. My guess is they came up short on a deal and decided the whole bunch of them–Realtors, that is–are sleazy sales types who would cheat their own mother out of a commission.

And there’s no shortage of voices against Realtors on the web. Read the comments section of any bubble blog or browse the real estate section of Yahoo! Answers and you’re bound to run into Realtor backlash. Besides NAR and the individual Realtors themselves, nobody tells the other side. So, I now present a small sliver of the other side.

The endorsements below were received in a matter of 24 hours on behalf of one Realtor who signed up with RealtyBaron.com:

It’s hard not to believe this Realtor goes the distance for all his clients. Bottom line: hard-working, ethical Realtors do exist. You just have to know where to look.