Archive for November, 2006
I just finished reading an interesting article that I found enlightening if not a bit surprising.
Economists at Oklahoma State and George Washington Universities studied consumer pricing in the mortgage industry and found that especially in the sub prime (less then steller credit) department Mortgage Brokers were a better option for borrowers.
See article here.
This is especially interesting being a top real estate agent I am pitched by both broker and bankers every week as to why we should choose to go the the source (“The Bank”) vs. going to a broker who can find the best mortgage for the client regardless of the bank. The banks suggest that brokers mark up their pricing to such an extent that ultimately the consumer pays more going through a broker while fees stay low dealing directly with the bank. Brokers suggest that because the mortgage business is competitive and they are looking for future business from their clients and agents who refer them business that they charge fees that are at most the same as the banks and in some cases beat the banks.
Staying on top of the trends in local real estate in the markets we serve is a full time exercise. Staying on top of the pricing of banks and brokers is also time consuming. It’s good to know there are people out there studying this problem.
November 17th, 2006
Well continuing my quest toward a Free Hotspot I’ve been playing with DNS Redirector a bit. It’s an inexpensive utility to intercept the first querry that those who use laptops will see when they open up a web browser to surf. I’ll probably install it tonight after hours on the deployed machine at The C Shop, however nothing is ever easy when learning new tricks.
Essentially the program sits on a machine on your internal network and assuming that visitors to the Hotspot do not have DNS Servers already put in their TCP/IP settings you can have the wireless router hand out the internal IP address of a machine on your network to do DNS lookups for client machines. It seems to work fairly well so far. The proviso is that the client must shut the browser window down before he or she can get to the original web page they were trying to get to. It’s a one time splash screen depending on the settings you have set, however it may be annoying to some users if they don’t follow the on screen instructions.
Essentially DNSRedirector will hand our a IP address that is to a server that you want the client to see first (must be IP based). In my case I used 192.168.1.3 since this is a static address on the same box that DNSRedirector is on.
Now the next part of the exercise is to have a web server running on that same machine. In this case I’m installing the Win 32 2.2.3 version of Apache to serve up some very basic pages. The reason I’m installing Apache is that it will allow me to bind certain web pages to different IP addresses which is needed for DNSRedirector to work properly.
I then had to change the httpd.conf in two places. One I had to change the Error document to:
ErrorDocument 404 /index.html
so that it would open up the index.html for any file opened at the destination URL since all files would likely be errors.
And add a Virtual host to answer on 192.168.1.3 in the Virtual Host section like the following:
< VirtualHost 192.168.1.3:80>
DocumentRoot htdocs/splash/public_html
< /VirtualHost>
htdocs is already installed when Apache is installed. splash/public_html is the directory for the Landing / Splash page that I want to show up.
Ultimately you have to log into your Router and change the IP address of the DNS Servers that you are going to hand out. I’m probably going to put the 192.168.1.2 address first (for DNS Redirector) and then the real DNS Servers from the ISP second and third just in case my machine is ever shut down. Otherwise clients will be without a DNS Server to lookup with.
DNS Redirector also allows me to set-up keyword allow and disallow lists to keep users of the network for surfing sites that may be less then desirable. (I haven’t tested this yet, and not sure if we will use this in the short run)
One last feature that I haven’t tested yet because it only runs under IIS and is an ASP script at the moment is the advertising replacement module. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but I’m assuming that it looks for major advertising network look-up and replaces the banner ads with ads that we might want to run. I may try this later if I can get a fixed IP on someone elses IIS server.
November 11th, 2006
Well this one looked like it was going to be an easy operation, however the documentation was flawed. I was attempting to expand the network at The C Shop since Patrick’s wireless router in his office didn’t cover the restaurant very well. I went and looked at all of the router’s and access point’s at Northwest Computer Supply and based on a couple of factor’s decided on the Linksys WAP54G to use in repeater mode.
The challenge with this particular Access Point is that the documentation is scarce in the box. Actually other then the CD there really wasn’t much print documentation. Running the Linksys set-up utility it seemed like it would be pretty easy to install, however the set-up utility didn’t cover putting the device in repeater mode but more as a router. It did refer to the web based utility which could be accessed at http://192.168.1.245 with the user ID: admin and password as set in the set-up utility, however trying that combination and resetting the Access Point probably 10 times trying to figure it out, I finally figured out the documentation was incorrect.
There is no User ID for the Access Point which is different then the Linksys Router.
So to log in the User ID is actually blank.
The other challenge in putting it into repeater mode is that the MAC Address that one gets off the Router itself doesn’t seem to work when entering it into the Access Point. The method that finally worked was when I hard wired the Access Point to the Router, used the web based utility and scanning for the MAC address through the Access Point.
The last point which seems to be a bit better documented is using the same wireless channel on both the Access Point and the Router.
November 11th, 2006
This is reposted from my original blog on icafe.com.Â
Well I’m relaunching iCafe.com based on the instalation of a Hotspot that I set-up at The C Shop in Birch Bay Washington. I’ve wanted to set-up a Hotspot for a while.Â
A little background: In the early 90’s I purchased the domain iCafe.com for an online service Interactive Cafe which at the time was a mini AOL. The ultimate remaining asset after running a web development company under the same name for about 5 years was a very cool domain name iCafe.com. Since then I’ve started one dot com which I sold to a public company, and during the last 4 1/2 years I’ve started a successful multi city and state real estate team.
Anyway talking with my old friend Pat Alesse of The C Shop I suggested expanding his wireless network to more adequately cover his place of business and that as part of the experiment I would purchase an inexpensive eMachine and throw a wireless card in it for those who wanted to check email on the go in Birch Bay.Â
On the eMachine I installed a couple of programs. 1) Deep Freeze to lock down the computer from kids who might try to mess with the computer and install stuff that shouldn’t be on there and LogMeIn Free so that I could remotely administer the network, install software on the machine and monitor the network a bit. In addition I picked up a Linksys WAP54G Access Point to expand the network by putting it into repeater mode.
November 11th, 2006
I saw this post on Craigslist and decided to blog a bit about it
>Â 6% is too much < tonka4x4> 10/02 14:30:17
I think 6% is too much, I think it should be on a sliding scale, 4% if the house sells in the first couple of weeks and if after the 1st month move to 4.5%, then if it’s 2 months maybe 5%, but I think that’s enough. 6% is crazy!
I’m a REALTOR and I also agree that 6% is too much for many properties. However here is the dilema. Most truly experienced agents who have had a fair degree of success over their career of 5+ years in real estate have enough business coming in that demanding 6% to some extent makes their job manageable. If they took listings at a lower commission they would have to hire more staff and ultimately may not make as much as an agent in the short run in favor of an economic model which would pay with larger marketshare and economies of scale. In my opinion this is the achilies heal of traditional real estate.
The second part of this dilemma is the newer agent who wants to get his/her feet wet with listings will often be willing to discount the commission, however newer agents are more likely to get the pricing wrong on the home, not be strong negotiators not having been involved in many transactions yet, and ultimately will in all likelihood cost the home seller more then the 1 or 2% savings on the commission rates vs the recognized expert.Â
In most cases the Home Seller and the agent won’t even notice the actual difference between a long time professional and a new professional in terms of pricing and marketing, but this challenge is real.
A third scenario is the “Limited Service Brokers” who charge less to the home seller who uses their services and claims that the sellers saved “$X” by choosing them.
This also is a misnomer. The national franchise which I currently hang my license with recently completed a nationwide study comparing selling prices, time on market and expiration of listings of “Limited Service Brokers” vs “Full Service”. What came out of the study was that “Limited Service Brokered” properties sold for less money (less net for the seller). The ones that did ultimately sell took on average 20% longer to sell and were 36% more likely to expire without a completed transaction. Here we could ask the question, “What about the Savings.” In reality the savings is an illusion in most cases. Sure there will be poster children for “Limited Service Brokers” of clients who sold in 1 day at a price above what they listed it at, but these poster children are just that, they are the anomaly. They are the sizzle of using a limited service broker.
One last item worth noting is that whether overt or not, most “Full Service Agents” are not excited to show “Limited Service Broker” listed product. If they do show these properties they are properties of last resort once the inventory of “Full Service” product has been shown to prospective clients. This ultimately leads to the financial dilemas that home sellers experience with the Limited Service Brokers.
What our team has been studying is a Flexible Commission model. Our research has shown that by modifying the commission based on the outcome, consumers ultimately would receive better perceived and real value for services provided. Ultimately if the buyer of the property comes from sphere of the home seller, or from a call on an ad or sign call there is no reason why the home seller should pay a full commission. In the case that the seller finds the buyer him or herself maybe they shouldn’t be obligated to pay a commission at all since in reality the marketing we do as agents didn’t ultimately result in the sale. We refer to our model as the 0,1,4,6 program which has structure for the seller to pay as little as 0 or 1% if the buyer works directly with the seller. If any of our team (6 buyers agents) sell the property then the commission is 4% (essentially 1% on the list side) and if another member of the MLS sells the property then the fee might be 6% depending on the property etc…
November 11th, 2006