my-currency has received a lot of press recently. Some good, and some bad. They even gave their pitch in front of a big crowd at DEMO.

Ok, so we have another socially interactive website centered around home prices (see Zillow). And yes, instead of relying on Zillow’s “black box” algorithm, you the people have the power to provide your input as to what value you actually place on the home. Sounds great, but useful? Will people really care? Which people will actually care? Do we really want anyone controlling the valuations of homes?

The way I see it, this my-currency prediction model is significanly flawed. We all know that something is only worth the value of what you can actually sell it for.

The real predictive, wisdom-of-the-crowds valuations of home prices are already being done when a prospective buyer submits an offer on a home which is for sale. Multiple offers are evaluated, one is ultimately chosen, and these offers resultingly dictate the actual market value of the home.

Receiving input from non-participatory parties in the sale transaction simply creates a value which is unusable and unrealistic. This would be the equivelant of asking your taxi cab driver of what value he places on your stocks and bonds. True, trustworthy values are created by those in the trading arena – not the bystandards.

So, with this being said, what are the possible applications for this model? Instead of opening this application to the entire world via the wide-open internet, what if this software was modular and was available at open-houses? Give a survey box to every person who walks through, and allow them to grade the home’s valuation as they are there in person. (Kitchen outdated? Minus $10,000. Breath-taking view? Add $20,000).

I’m sure there is a benefit for this type of modeling system within the home buying industry, but I’m sure making home valuations this wide open isn’t the sweet-spot.

This snapshot should give you a few hints. Keep tuned for more updates.

Click here to watch the interview.

Click here to see Pete give a demo of Trulia.

In this 15 minute interview Pete Flint gives a candid summary of how Trulia was founded, how they came up with the term ‘Trulia’, their means of startup, the business model, and market outlooks.

Scoble Show is just one of the show’s on the Podtech Network. If you haven’t stumbled across this site yet, you gotta check it out.

Here are the notes that I jotted down as I listened to the interview.

• Pete Flint, CEO of Trulia
• Real Estate search engine
• 1 year incubation, 1 year operations
• Offices in Southern San Francisco. 25 in SF, few on East Coast – majority engineering, sales
• Average profile: 35 year old female
• Trulia: play on the words “truth” and “trust”. Providing truthful and trustworthy information for home buyers.
• Medium sales price has gone down on a macro level, but Trulia can help you identify the neighborhoods which are resisting these trends and still increasing in value.
• Spent a year trying to understand the complexity of the real estate industry prior to development.
• Advertising supported.
• Started the business out of frustration of finding real estate information online after moving from the UK to the Bay area. Idea evolved as a grad student at Stanford.
• Lessons learned: Real estate is INCREDIBLY local.
• New products: Heat maps, and property comparison tools.
• LAMP architecture, open source.
• Google maps.
• Cheap to launch. 4 guys and only a few $10k to start.
• Best decision as CEO is hiring the right people.
• President Sami Inkinen, spends nearly 300 days of the year on the road evangelizing and educating brokers on Trulia’s offerings.

Thanks, Homethinking!

Check out Joel’s summary here for a more detailed review.

This is very interesting. We know that all the top Silicon Valley companies employ some of the world’s top minds, and often squable over them. Suppose if one of the big three (MSN, Yahoo, Google), or even someone within the real estate community (Zillow, Move, Realogy, Trulia), were to hire Pablo and apply his algorithms to real estate search. Now that would make for an interesting property search!

In response to John C., let me say this. After careful consideration, I recommended HV to my brother who is a new agent. HV is legitimate, they have commercials on TV, and they have great support and CRM solutions. So, after my lofty recommendation, my brother signed up. Two years ago, what was a $250/mo fee, turned into a $600/mo fee last year for my brother’s small market. My brother received several leads per week – week after week. He followed up on them all. He followed HV’s recommendations, went through their training, and offered every service they suggested. After 5 months of no sales, he gave up. He realized he was wasting his time chasing these leads which simply did not close. He was locked into a long-term contract, but realized that his time was best served finding business elsewhere than spending the majority of his day chasing curious home owners who weren’t interested in selling – or selling with the HV agent.

My article below basically questions the excessiveness of lead generation. The consumer deserves the opportunity to browse homes online without the pressure of having to provide their personal information. Zillow provided this option to HouseValue’s dismay. And now, companies like Trulia, Propsmart, Redfin, and Blueroof are providing home listings as the consumer deserves.

See the original story and the rest of my thoughts here.
Originally posted by Inman News here. (subscription required)

It should be noted that Realty.com was strictly a lead-gen site at the time of me writing this article. Immediately after, we began work to provide a broader range of services. The new site was launched 5 months later, and we still are working on providing a better consumer experience.

During my trip to Manhattan yesterday, as I sat in JFK awaiting my hotel shuttle to arrive, I couldn’t help to notice the similarities between taxi cabs and the current state of real estate.

First: the story about taxi cabs.
In New York, if you flew into JFK airport and wanted travel home to the city, chances are you’ll walk out to the sidewalk, approach the cab stand, and stand in line for the next available yellow car. Once inside the taxi, just like all other vehicular options, you’ll be sitting in traffic for the next 60-90 minutes as your driver takes you to your destination. In the taxi, the meter runs constantly. Taxi meters work on the FM principal for me, but my guess is that there’s some algorithm which charges for each mile and each minute used during your ride. So, in essence your fare is a commission of the time & distance you travel. For this ride the total is going to average around $50.

Second: the story about private cars and limousines.
When traveling from the airport to home the taxicab isn’t your only option. In fact, there are several options – one of which is the private car and limousine service. When you walk out of the airport onto the street level chances are that you’ll see several black town cars and limousines. These private cars are sitting there to serve you, just as the yellow taxicabs are. However, instead of a metered ride, the limos and private cars offer a flat fee service. One driver I saw held a sign which said “$35 – All City”. This meant that for anywhere destination inside of Manhattan his fare would be a $35 flat fee.

What a deal, right!?! For the same travel time, you’ll travel inside of a nice town car with tinted windows, and have a driver who is nicely dressed in a full suit and tie – and for $15 less! All of this, plus you still have the personal service of having a car to yourself.

Third: the story about shared shuttles.
Another option for the commute into town is a shared shuttle. Many hotels offer a shuttle service as a complimentary pick-up service for their guests. But, in addition to these hotel shuttles there are a few-third party services which provide similar services — the shared shuttle.

With a shared shuttle, you’ll travel in a 8-15 passenger van along side many other travelers. The fare is significantly less (in this case just $15), but the trade off is that you’ll be crammed into a bouncy van along with 10-15 others on a long, nauseous ride. Luggage will be placed on laps, under your feet, and chances are you’ll travel all over town dropping the other passengers off at their destination prior to arriving at yours. It’s cheap, it’s not sexy, but the result is the same — front door drop-off at your destination.

So what does this have to do with Real Estate?
Clearly, you can see that the weary traveler has options. But sadly, most people don’t know that they do. You can take the yellow cab for about $50 (depending on the meter). You can grab a private car for $35. Or you can try a shared service for as low as $15. Depending on your mindset, a good argument can be made for selecting each service over the other. But, it’s obvious that the taxi cab is most expensive and offers no direct advantages to the consumer.

The only advantages that taxis have are that they outnumber the other options 100-fold. They are readily available on any street corner. They breed familiarity. And they are unionized regulated – one of the largest! (see Matt’s comment below).

So to figure out what this has to do with the future of Real Estate, read the above stories again. But, this time change the out the following words:

Taxi Cabs = Traditional Real Estate Brokerages
Limousines = Discount Realty Brokers
Shared Shuttles = Limited Service MLS Listings
Taxi Union = National Association of Realtors

Am I wrong??

I think I’ll be taking a limo from the airport from now on.

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This year the kids didn’t start coming to the door until about 6:00. And by 7:30 we had over 300 kids come to our door. We ran out of candy and were forced to turn many kids away who were still circling the block. Even after we turned out the porch lights many kids were still knocking on the doors in hopes that we may have a few pieces left.

To chronicle the event, I took photos of EVERY kid who came to our door. Take a peak, and give it the page a few seconds to load. It’s well worth the look.

Update: My brother took these photos and did a short video. Check it out.

We’re bumping the total number of bloggers up to 4, so we’ve got just 2 more openings.

A friend of mine, who’s in the industry as well, tipped me off recently that House.com had moved their operations from NY to Charlotte. So, seeing the sign on the side of the road wasn’t too surprising. But, it did make me wonder about House’s business model, and about Charlotte in general.

Charlotte is quietly becoming the mecca for online real estate. Now, there’s no way that it can compete with the prowess of Emeryville, Seattle, or the Valley. But, just take a look at which companies call Charlotte home.

• RealEstate.com
• House.com
• Realty.com
• iHomes.com
• LendingTree
• Bank of America
• Wachovia
• Lowes

In addition to LendingTree and RealEstate.com, I also believe that IAC has parts of GetSmart.com, Domania, and iNest here. If not in total, some representation of these three can be found in Charlotte. I also was informed recently that the new CEO of NewHomes.com was pulled from Charlotte to their Florida home office.

I was curious about what House.com was up to. So, I shot an email out to Dan Parisi – no reply. (He rarely does). Then, I figured I would call the 800 # listed on the sign. After asking a few questions to the customer service rep I was informed that their plans for opening a brokerage are on hold, and they are focusing on obtaining more agent relationships for their lead network. That’s cool. Sticking to your core biz strategy is never a wrong move.

But, with all of us in the same town, we should all get together for a drink and chat. It would make for a fun game of trying to find-more-about-your-competitor-than-they-can-find-out-about-you.

So, Dan, Eric, Gary, Michael, Doug… when’s the first pow-wow?

Realty.com is currently going through a face lift. A much needed face lift. I couldn’t be more excited with these designs. Our designer, Josie Nicoletta is an all-star! Should anyone have any comments – post away!

Realty Preveiw 1 [image removed]
Realty Preview 2 [image removed]

Also, we are also in development of iHomes.com. iHomes will initially be in beta testing on a local scale – first city to test is Charlotte. If things go well, we’ll roll out the iHomes services to other select cities, then nationally.

iHomes Preview 1 [image removed]
iHomes Preview 2 [image removed]

Look forward to your feedback.