As a followup to my blog about managing my information, contacts, websites and so on using Blogspot, Myspace, and Blue.us, I still feel overwhelmed with information.
With websites like Zillow, Windows Live Local, Redfin, Rain City Guide, there's so much information for someone in the real estate industry. And I've posted my thoughts on many of these before, below is a summary of what the sites feature.
Zillow - All you have to do is enter an address, and Zillow will give you an approximate value of that address (whether it's for sale or not)... then Zillow will give you the value of all the properties around you! The only problem is that you can't (as of yet) figure out what's for sale and what's not. I mean, it's nice to know that SOME homes in Bellevue are still only worth $300K, but nobody in that price range is currently selling their homes.
Windows Live Local - So far (since it's still in Beta mode), this website looks mainly like a really fancy Bird's Eye View map covering Seattle and the Eastside. It also features a car's eye view of downtown Seattle. So you can "drive" from place to place without leaving your computer. What I tend to do is do all my research on other websites, then I come here to check out the maps since the quality is much better than Zillow, Redfin, or Google Maps.
Redfin - I've been hearing about these guys for a while (I think I even get spam from them) but I just checked out their site and it's pretty innovative. All you do is enter an address (say, you wanted to live on Newport Way in Issaquah). Redfin will show you the map, and then will point to all the MLS listings available on the map (for now, I think it only works in Seattle... not sure though). It's really cool, although some destinations were inaccurate. The thing that's kinda scary to me (from a real estate agent's perspective) is that Redfin offers to give up to 2% back to a buyer "if" they meet certain requirements.
This is what worries me...
1. I've been in transactions where lenders aren't going to let buyers get "cash back" at closing. Most lenders are going to question why you need money back in the first place (They may think you can't afford the place). And anything over 1% is usually a red flag.
2. I've worked with "bad agents" forgetting paperwork and making bad offers. I can't imagine what type of offer would come directly from a homebuyer (unless of course they have plenty of experience buying homes).
3. The fact that some buyers are going to view the house with another agent and then go to Redfin.com to make an offer (without that agent) is probably going to cause legal headaches when it comes to who represents who.
Still, it would be tempting to try this out if I didn't already have access to the MLS.
Rain City Guide - One of the larger Seattle area real estate blogs I've seen. Lots of information on this site. Lots of regular contributors (agents and techies alike). Still, it just seems like there's too much going on. If I spend more than 2 minutes on there, I get dizzy. The front page seems to go on forever. As cutting edge as some of the features and search functions are (RSS feeds, nice!)... it almost seems like it's more than what's necessary to serve the needs of real estate clients. Oh well, the site seems more geared toward providing information anyway, so that's nice. I mean, I only get 10 hits a day on my own real estate website, but I get at least a call or email everyday from one of those 10. I couldn't imagine how overwhelmed I would be if I got as many visitors as they do (or course most visitors aren't going to Rain City Guide to look for an agent, but I digress).
Housing Maps.com - This is an innovative website. It takes all the listings from Craigslist (FSBO and MLS I believe) and places them onto Google Maps. Strangely enough, they're not affiliated with neither Google Maps nor Craigslist. Hey, I don't question it, I just use it.
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