Real Estate Brokers Can Coexist With National Portals by Changing the Way We Share Data

A few weeks ago, Brad Inman argued that Zillow and Trulia are on a course to make multiple listing services and brokerages obsolete. Brad challenged brokers to “completely reorient their business and value proposition around the reality of the portals.”

Brad didn’t explore what that “complete reorientation” meant, and many brokers have glumly begun to cede the future to the portals. Resistance to the portals, some feel, is futile. But coexistence is necessary.

In almost every industry, consumers start online with an Internet portal. Kayak has more traffic than Delta Airlines. AutoTrader.com has more traffic than CarMax. Google has more traffic than Amazon.

Yet plenty of folks find their way from Kayak to Delta, from AutoTrader to CarMax, from Google to Amazon. Relatively few come from Zillow to Century21.com.

Fortunately, the goal for a broker isn’t to get more traffic than a national portal, just to get more traffic than the broker had before. It’s hard to imagine how brokers will meaningfully support our agents or serve our customers without our own growth strategy on the Internet. With American Internet usage doubling every five years, there’s plenty of traffic to go around.

Rather than the brokers “completely reorienting” to the reality of the portals as they are today, the two parties have to work together to give real estate consumers a cohesive online experience. We don’t have a sustainable partnership today because we haven’t imagined for ourselves an online role that complements the portals.

Where the portals are national and broad, our role is local and deep: for the serious home-buyer, no portal has the information we do about the homes we’re selling, with hundreds of locale-specific fields that national portals aren’t designed to handle. Over time, brokerage sites can also become a rich repository of local insights from our agents about the neighborhoods we live in, the homes we’ve seen or the offers we’ve made.

A model of Internet coexistence

A model of Internet coexistence based on national breadth and local depth will give the consumer the most complete real estate experience, but we need to make a few simple changes through our MLSs to create a balanced Internet ecosystem.

Brokerage sites, including Redfin, should drive more traffic to listing brokers

In the Internet Data Exchange (IDX) feeds shared with other brokerage websites, MLSs should include Google-friendly links to source listings. Requiring every MLS subscriber to link to the source listing will ensure that brokers with more listings get much more traffic, from other brokerage sites like Redfin, and from Google.

Support the portals as a directory, not a destination, for brokers’ listings

The portals insist that they are advertisers, not rival sites, for the brokers, but our postings on their sites don’t have the basic attributes of an ad. The MLS can make it easy to syndicate a posting for every listing to every portal, but these postings should be just that — a posted ad, with a few photos, a price, basic details — not the entire listing.

The portals need to identify the listing broker prominently, with a link that appears on desktop and mobile browsers wherever the address is displayed, so consumers can easily find the full listing on the local broker’s site.

Google does not display Amazon’s entire Web page about a TV or a book in a Google search result. Facebook shows a snippet of a New York Times article with a linked photo and headline to read the rest on nytimes.com. Any Trulia, Zillow or Realtor.com visitor with a serious interest in a broker’s listings should end up on that broker’s site to evaluate the full listing.

Advertise listings on portals only while the listings are for sale

We walk through our clients’ homes, photographing and describing each for the purposes of selling it, sharing that information with other websites as part of our fiduciary duty to promote the property, while it’s for sale, to the broadest audience. But the portals often keep these property details on their sites in perpetuity, without regard for local privacy customs, removing only the attribution to the broker who provided the data.

Imagine if a roadside billboard promoted a concert but only on the condition that the billboard be allowed to display the promotion indefinitely, even a decade after the concert had passed, in order to lure its audience to attend concerts from competing bands. This is what the portals are doing with listings.

Ask the MLSs to represent us on syndication

The deals now being struck between brokers and the portals are often on terms that benefit the portals, not the brokers. The brokers Redfin talks to do not fully understand the contracts they signed, and have no one working in compliance to see that those terms are enforced as the web changes. We created and funded MLSs to hire lawyers, engineers and compliance managers who could share listing our data with the world in a thoughtful, even-handed way.

Given the asymmetry in negotiating power and expertise between the portals and a local broker, the brokers need the MLSs to negotiate and monitor compliance on our behalf, but more aggressively than the MLSs have in the past.

Why now

Why is Redfin taking this position now? The brokers are now permanently licensing data to the portals, gaining leads today at the cost of our long-term Internet presence, and ultimately our ability to meet customers on our own. The portals offering such deals are asking us to trade in fishing poles — the unique data that powers our own website — for fish — contacts for our agents.

The risk if we forget how to fish is that we may all have to rely on one fisherman to feed us. If one portal rapidly takes a dominant position over the other portals, what standing will we as brokers have to resist price increases or other changes in terms over time? There are few precedents in Internet history where businesses have turned over a near-complete copy of their databases in an exclusive deal with a company, and none where a consumer company has abandoned its own channel for meeting consumers.

Redfin’s only qualification to create a more balanced partnership is that we finally took the time to understand data licensing, we don’t currently depend on the portals for much of our business, and we are ourselves a brokerage.

Some brokers won’t listen to us because of our history of rabble-rousing. That was seven years ago. Since then, Redfin’s 1,000-plus agents have taken our customers on tours of more than 500,000 listings, and closed 30,000 Redfin sales, all working across the table from agents at other brokerages. Redfin’s agents will list more than 4,000 homes for sale in 2014.

The brokerage community still has major differences, depending on our size and capital to invest in technology, but we all have far more in common with one another than with a portal, and we have a framework in the MLSs for making sure no broker exploits another. Outside that framework, we can’t blame the portals for pursuing their best interests at the expense of ours.

Our role as brokers in a fragmented marketplace requires us to imagine a future in which we share data and traffic with the portals so that consumers can see all the information available about a home for sale, across the Internet. If we strike the right balance, we can support the portals and still maintain our own relationship with Internet consumers. We just have to work together, based on a simple, shared vision of the portals’ role in the future, and our own.

For the first time in our history, Redfin wants to be a part of the conversation about how we work together. We’re going to the National Association of Realtors’ midyear conference in Washington, D.C. this week, and look forward to talking in person with our peers about how we as brokers share data. We hope to talk to more of you soon.

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Real Estate Trends: Redfin Agents Tell Us What’s HOT and What’s NOT

It’s no surprise that homes with “hot” features tend to sell faster than homes that have less desirable attributes. Knowing if your home is hot or not can help you determine your list price. “If your home is full of features that are NOT hot, you may want to consider doing some basic remodeling work or lower your expectations for how fast it will sell and at what price,” says Dallas-based Redfin real estate agent Carmen Jones. With that in mind, Redfin surveyed 435 of our real estate agents across the country to find out what the biggest real estate trends are right now. Here are the features that are hottest among homebuyers, and those that may keep buyers away.

Open floor plansTurnkey homes (homes that are move-in ready)Granite in areas such as bathrooms or kitchensUpgraded windowsLocations near public transportationEnergy-saving appliancesLarge closetsUpdated lighting fixturesTwo-story home with a bedroom on the main floorWood floorsPopcorn ceilingsCarpetLack of parkingSmall kitchens and bathroomsMinimal amount of natural lightDated homesWallpaperLow ceilingsLimited storage spaceLoud location on a busy street

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Mother’s Day Kitchen Renovation Gift Ideas

To inspire you this Mother’s Day, here are some kitchen renovation gift ideas:

If your mother has been using the same cooking appliances for several years, there is a good chance they’re getting faded and need repairs on occasion. Why not buy her an all-new appliance or two? This is also a good opportunity to give her something energy efficient, so the gift keeps on giving through utility bill savings.

After years of people moving back and forth through the kitchen, the flooring has probably started to wear and fade. There might be cracks in the linoleum, cracked tiles or other problems that need fixing. You can wait until your mother is out of the house and hire a flooring contractor to fix those cracks to make it look brand new.

Depending on the type of sink your family uses to wash vegetables and hands before dinner, the sink and faucet could be worn, cracked or out of place with other elements in the room. Upgrading these two fixtures will create a new prep space that can also mean savings on the utility bill. Low-flow faucet installation could cost as little as $130, while sink installation can cost from $180 to $1,500 depending on the type of materials, whether you have to update the plumbing and the extent of the work.

Lighting is paramount to meal prep, especially in the evenings. To help your mom and anyone else who prepares meals, install more lighting under the cabinets or in the ceiling. Recessed lighting is especially useful for kitchens because they can have energy-efficient bulbs and prevent anyone from bumping their head while moving about the kitchen. Homeowners might pay $760 to $1,105 for all new lighting, or a single light fixture could cost between $42 and $112 when hiring an electrician to do the work.

Aside from installing LED lighting, a low-flow faucet and efficient appliances, the kitchen has plenty of opportunities for other sustainable improvements. If there are windows in the kitchen, they could be replaced with double-paned ones that block outside heat or wind and keep the temperature steady indoors. Countertops and cabinets can also be replaced with more sustainable options such as bamboo or solid-surface materials.

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Zac Efron Unloads Modern Hollywood Hills Home

The “High School Musical” star just parted ways with his ultramodern Hollywood Hills home, which sold for $2.775 million. The 2,400-square-foot estate has two bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. The architectural work of art, designed by Rodney Walker, features walls of glass that open to the outdoors from every room for a seamless indoor/outdoor experience. The large windows bring in tons of natural light for a bright and airy feel. The home also features heated concrete floors and an outdoor infinity pool. Listing photos reveal amazing spaces outside the home, including a large deck that’s perfect for entertaining guests! It is modestly decorated, with a mixture of simple white and dark wood furniture pieces. Efron purchased the home in 2008 for $2.35 million following the success of the “High School Musical” movie.

But, the star isn’t going far. The 26-year-old recently scooped up a new home just six miles away for $3.995 million. Efron, who just finished filming the comedy “Neighbors,” seems to gravitate toward modern architecture, as his new pad also features right angles and geometric shapes. His new home is considerably bigger, with five bedrooms, 5.25 baths and 5,644 square feet. Amenities include a chef’s kitchen, spa-like master bath, pool, spa and wine cellar. Seth Rogan, who co-stars in “Neighbors” with Efron, recently told Conan O’Brian that he thinks Efron is the “sexiest mother—er alive.” Maybe that’s thanks to that gym the 26-year-old has at home.

Efron’s new pad is situated down a long, private driveway, and has a security system that will ensure he has plenty of privacy, which he is probably seeking after being in the news for some of his recent antics. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room take advantage of the impressive views. The expansive walk-in closet has a manly vibe, with dark wood cabinets. The property also has a guest house, so Efron’s brother and parents can visit for a long weekend in Hollywood. Other famous folks in the neighborhood include Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Eva Mendez and Christina Ricci.

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Make the Most of Your Home’s Square Footage

Moving into a new home is exhausting, rewarding, exciting and challenging. When you looked at the home, you likely filled your head with ideas for how to decorate, where to put your favorite pieces of furniture and what you wanted to buy to make the house uniquely yours. Before you jump into all those projects with both feet, take some time to think about how to make the most of your home’s square footage.

A large living room is fantastic for entertaining and family charades night, but big living rooms also run the risk of seeming cold and uninviting. To keep a big space hospitable and cozy:

Create different areas. Maybe you want a reading nook in the corner and a home entertainment system on the other side of the room. If you have room, you can add a nice table and chairs for game night or doing homework.Use warm colors to give it a more intimate feeling.Rugs can help distinguish the different sections of the room. If the rugs have something in common, like a color or a pattern, it helps unify the entire space.Place tall plants in empty corners.Use one wall as a “gallery wall,” the go-to place for your favorite artwork and family photos.

Small spaces present the perfect opportunity to create a cozy, close feeling, but the last thing you want to do is end up with a room that is as cramped as a coffin. To make small areas work for you:

Don’t fear big furniture. A few chairs and a little loveseat in a small living room can seem cluttered, while a large sofa gives the impression of simplicity and cleanness.Use mirrors to maximize light and expand small spaces.Think vertically when it comes to storage and displaying art.

Wendy Peterson, a Redfin real estate agent in Tampa, has experience making the best use of space. “Right after college, my daughter moved into a small fixer-upper, causing us to get creative about how she used her space. Pinterest was a great source of inspiration. We focused on making the space seem bigger by painting the walls light, airy colors and painting paneling and woodwork white to further brighten things. We also purchased a few pieced of mirrored accent furniture to help reflect natural light.”

If your home is the size of a cracker box, a castle or somewhere in the middle, wise storage options will help you get the most out of your square footage.

When you moved, you probably got rid of a ton of stuff you didn’t need and won’t miss. Do you still have some items like that hanging around? Ditch them, and then take a look at what you have left. Before you go out and buy storage containers or shelves, know what you’ll use them for.

Shallow storage containers that slide under furniture are great for bedrooms and living rooms. If you don’t have a lot of cabinet space in the kitchen or office and don’t have the time or resources to install permanent storage, hit the Internet. Pinterest is full of creative ways to store things.

The thrill of moving into a new home might get you a little carried away at home stores and department stores. Before you go shopping, put away the things you have and make a plan for the things you want. For example, maybe you need a new dining table because your old one doesn’t work in your new dining room. Measure your room, and think about what else you want to put in there and what overall ambiance you’re aiming for.

The same principle applies when making home improvements, like installing cabinets or painting a room. Make liberal use of color swatches and fabric samples. Your goal is to make your home a haven where you love to live, so take your time, make a plan, and watch it come to perfection.

You can imitate those cool ideas in magazines and the Internet for decoration and furniture arrangements. Whatever you do, though, make sure it fits in with your personality. It doesn’t take much to make a room go from bland to all about you.

A piece or two of statement furniture, like a cool antique chair, can say volumes about your personal style. Eye-catching art, a bold display of your favorite books, or splashes of your favorite daring color can all help make your home a place that is unmistakably yours.

The process of decorating and arranging your new home is a rare experience, and it’s one worth savoring. Use these tips to help you make it happen.

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Why I Work at Redfin: Emily Harmell, Software Developer

People sometimes ask me why I work at Redfin as a software developer. It was hard to narrow down the list, but here are my top 10 reasons:10. Everyone was so interesting right off the bat. Just during my interviews, I had conversations about board games, ESPN and terrible college roommates, in addition to talking about Java and algorithm runtimes. And at the end of the interview, they sent me home with a new oven mitt!9. Everyone cares so much about everyone else. On my birthday, a teammate traveled across town to one of the few vegan bakeries in Seattle and bought an assortment of vegan cupcakes for us all to share.The velocity. I got to make so many more awesome things in my first year at Redfin than I did in every prior class and internship. Just a few things I’ve worked on include Redfin Collections, social features, registration features and A/B tests to determine which new features are the most effective.7. The appreciation and acknowledgment of the work I do. After I worked on my first Android feature, the lead Android engineer sent me this figurine with a note expressing his gratitude for the hard work involved:6. The leadership. The executive team is full of really smart, really passionate people that I would probably follow into a dark cave full of bats and dragons if they told me it was a good idea.5. The competitive spirit. We take competition seriously here, whether it’s disrupting the real estate industry in the consumer’s favor or consuming the most watermelon in the shortest amount of time.4. The morale events. Without Redfin, I probably never would have gone river rafting, played Ultimate Frisbee, joined a kickball league, done a scavenger hunt around San Francisco or taken a cooking class.3. The creativity. When one of our developers was stuck in a Washington, D.C., snowstorm during a recruiting trip on Valentine’s Day, the whole team pitched in to decorate her desk for her return.2. Redfin agents are fantastic! They are the most ridiculously hardworking, fun and caring people. It’s awesome to have the opportunity to build features that help them.1. Everyone is super weird. At Redfin our motto is “keep it weird” and the employees take it seriously.About Emily HarmellEmily is a software developer in Seattle working on our New Business Engineering team. Prior to joining Redfin, she studied computer science at the University of Washington. When she isn’t coding, Emily organizes the monthly Redfin Women in Engineering meetings. Outside of work, she spends a lot time adoring her two rabbits, Kat and Bianca.This post is part of a series titled “Why I Work at Redfin.” Check out other posts in the series to learn more about what it’s like to work at a growing customer-first real estate brokerage. For more information on Redfin, and to check out open jobs at the company, visit Jobs at Redfin.View the original article here

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Tips for Moving with a Pet

Moving to a new city or town can be incredibly stressful, and it’s also a huge stress to your pet. New sights and sounds and unfamiliar smells can combine to make a move upsetting to even the most well-behaved and mellow of animals.

According to some estimates, up to one third of pets get lost at some point in their life. The chaos of moving and unfamiliar surroundings in the days and weeks after a move raise the risk that your pet may escape or even try to run away.

If you are moving with a pet, here are some tips from experts including the American Humane Association to help you make your move go smoothly.

Before your move, make sure to get dog tags made with your new address, as well as your phone number and email address. Keep your old dog tags and your new ones on your pet during the move, and have a recent photo of your dog with you just in case he or she gets lost.If you’re moving by car or van, make reservations ahead of time at hotels that accept pets. Check the Pet Friendly Hotels website for a state-by-state list of hotels that accept dogs and cats. Keep in mind that the hotel rooms reserved for pets can book up. Make reservations well ahead of time, and plan out a route with reasonable daily mileage to keep both you and your pet from getting overtired.Note that pet-friendly hotels often have guidelines against leaving your pet alone in the room. Fortunately, many go out of their way to accommodate your pet, and should be able to give you pointers about surrounding restaurants that are likely to be pet friendly.Keep your dog crated or on a leash at all times during a move. According to the American Humane Association, “The stress of a move can cause even the most obedient dog to run away in unfamiliar surroundings.”Rover’s partners at Petco recommend that you pack slowly, over the course of weeks. They also recommend that you take time to get your pet used to staying in a crate if he or she isn’t used to one, and make sure that your pup’s nails are trimmed to help avoid getting them hooked on the crate.We hope this goes without saying, but never, ever leave your pet unattended in a car, even on cool days.If you’re transporting your pet by air, keep in mind you need to book well in advance, both for travel in the cabin and in the cargo compartment.Note that airlines may cancel flights for pets traveling in the compartment area if the temperatures are too hot.  Similarly, if your flight is delayed due to bad weather, your pet may get bumped and moved to a kennel facility, and not make it on the same flight as you. You’ll then need to foot the bill for any related costs.Crate sizes can be very specific, as is the list of requirements for the kennel construction. (See Alaska Airlines’ guidelines as an example.)Try to find a vet in your new town ahead of time, just in case your dog becomes ill during travel. Know your vet’s hours and locate an emergency 24-hour clinic just in case.Keep your dog out of the fray as boxes and furniture are moved in. Falling objects and household poisons can be hazardous during a move.Set up your dog’s bed and play area with familiar toys. Be sure to spend extra time with your dog in the first days after a move to keep him or her feeling loved and secure.

As always, if you have any questions about your dog’s well being, be sure to check with your veterinarian. And to make sure you have a dog sitter at the ready when you arrive in your new town, visit Rover.com and search for the dog sitter who’s perfect for both you and your dog.

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