Catch up on August’s Real Estate News

Sit back and relax as we run through this August real estate news. Let’s start with the ever-present topic of Facebook changes.

Facebook ch-ch-changes

Are you familiar with “loglines?” It’s a brief (typically one or two sentences) summary of a film or TV show that “states the central conflict of the story, often providing both a synopsis of the story’s plot, and an emotional ‘hook” to stimulate interest,” according to Wikipedia.

Producers rely on loglines to learn if a particular script is of interest to them, so they must be ultra-compelling.

Think of them as akin to the cover lines on a magazine that tempt us to open and read, the subject line of an email that causes us to open or trash it and the title of a blog post that either intrigues or repels.

What does this have to do with real estate?

Starting this month, Facebook is cutting the number of lines for ads that appear on mobile devices. “Page posts and ads on mobile will match the look and feel of the new Facebook design introduced earlier this year,” according to an announcement on Facebook’s website.

You’ll only have three lines of text to pique a viewer’s interest and “Maximum media height for photos and videos will reduce to 4:5 on mobile News Feed.” Taller images and video will be “masked on Facebook mobile news feed.”

Brush up on headline writing best practices or take tips from the motion picture industry on writing loglines.

Read the entire announcement on Facebook.com.

Thank God for E&O insurance

Should agents be held legally responsible for injuries sustained on a buyer touring a listing?

Apparently one attorney thinks so, according to this August real estate news. The attorney has brought suit on behalf of a West Virginia woman whose leg fell through the floor (“all the way up to her hip”) while touring a property.

She is suing the owner of the property as well as the agent and her broker for negligence. Read the story online at Magazine.Realtor.

We warned you more than a year ago

In summer of 2018, we suggested that you might want to stop chasing millennial real estate leads and go after Gen X. And, we hate to say we told you so, but, apparently, we were right.

Millennials are the worst clients, according to agent poll

according to an August real estate news headline on Inman.com. It turns out that the article refers to a recent Redfin study. For the survey, they reached out to “500 U.S. real estate agents across 50 markets” with at least one sale in the past year.

Redfin used a research firm to recruit these respondents, so the agents had no idea who commissioned the study.

Topics range from how long the agents have been in the industry to how many homes they sold the previous year, whether they were willing to recommend real estate as a career and more.

When asked which “customers” (they probably mean “clients,” right?) are the easiest to work with, more than half named Gen Xers. Fewer than one-fourth chose millennials as an easy-to-work-with group of real estate consumers.

“Millennials are accustomed to ordering and canceling ride-shares and meal delivery on their phones, and thus don’t feel the same sense of personal obligation when working with a buyer’s agent who by and large only gets paid when a sale is made, after months of service,” claims Redfin.com’s Glenn Kelman.

The agents we’ve spoken to say something different. Millennials are the babies of the real estate consumer world and, therefore, require more time-consuming hand-holding.

For most, this is their first real estate transaction. Why, we asked last summer, pursue this group of time-sucking consumers who may or may not consummate a home purchase in lieu of the older, more experienced Gen X? Especially since most Gen Xer homebuyers also have a home to sell.

Read the survey results online at Redfin.com.

Oh, those wacky real estate disrupters

First it was discount brokerages, then iBuyers and now, folks can shop for a home on Amazon.com.

Amazon “is partnering with Realogy Holdings Corp. to funnel potential buyers to the brokerage company’s agents,” according to Bloomberg.com’s Patrick Clark.

While the enticement of iBuyers is time (a quicker closing), this partnership is offering up to $5,000 in Amazon “products and services,” Clark said. This could be anything from smart home tech to furniture.

It’s great news for C-21, Coldwell Banker and Sotheby’s agents. Amazon is the world’s marketplace, so the opportunity to use the audience to troll for leads is a dream-come-true for some.

On the Zillow Offers front: In July, they announced that they’re offering their iBuying services in Ft. Collins, Colorado, Zillow’s 14^th market.

If you recall, last October Zillow moved into the Denver market and they’ve now got some stats. During the first six months in the Mile High City, Zillow Offers scooped up 139 homes.

They only sold 55 of them – for an average $11,257 more than it paid, according to Thomas Gounley at BusinessDen.com.

The most interesting statistic, though, is how quickly they aim to resell the homes: 10 days.

This means they are looking for homes that require minimal work with owners willing to not only sell for a rock-bottom price (it’s highly doubtful Zillow is willing to pay market value) but to then fork over at least 7 percent of their equity.

Wow. 

August real estate news – Cheaper to buy than rent?

Apparently, it may just be. Crunch the numbers in your area because, according to some August real estate news, courtesy of a recent Zillow Real Estate Market Report, renting just got a lot more expensive, rising for the ninth consecutive month.

Consider a direct mail campaign to tenants (get ideas and tips here), blog posts shared on social media. . .get the word out.

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