The Carnival of Real Estate

Welcome to the 54th Carnival of Real Estate. There were a number of really good entries this week, so thanks for submitting. I decided to pare the number down to the 6 that I found the most interesting and entertaining.

Jonathan Dalton reflects on the state of the industry. In What Have We Taught Our Clients?, he covers the sins of perception that real estate agents are propagating across the country.

We have taught our clients that agents are driving the buying process. We’re not. Yes, an agent will send properties to his or her buyers. But they’ll likely receive as many or more in return. Why? Because there’s little need for the middleman when it comes to searching for homes. Our role as agents has changed – finding the home is the easy part. Negotiating the contract all the way through to the closing is where our expertise comes into play.

Lani Anglin writes a fun rant titled, Obsession With Youth? I Think Not!, where she berates a letter writer to REALTOR magazine.

I object to the letter because those who have been successful in the corporate world that haven’t hit their 30th birthday SHOULD be celebrated. As a member of that group, I will tell you that my biggest professional obstacle is NOT my sex, my background or my vocabulary level- it is my age.

Patrick Kapowich, of Silicon Valley Broker, discusses How Can Brokers Protect Themselves From Agent Promotion?

My concern was the same then as it is now: Will agents and/or brokers answer online questions outside their areas of expertise? (As many do off-line) – They did. Which, by the way, is strictly prohibited.

Benn Rosales reminds us about self-fulfilling prophecies in Mortgage Drama, Real Estate Bubble, Tech Crash, Dotcom Disaster.

As some (including myself) try to remain positive around the blog-o-whatever about the mortgage industry, there are already those who cannot stop warning and passing along their own fears. It is already preordained that we will have a mortgage meltdown because the virus of words is already spreading.

Craig Schiller, of Home Staging, talks about the values of staging a home in Are Vacant Homes Black Holes That Suck the Life Out of their Own Sales?

…a vacant house will be more difficult to sell then a furnished home. A buyers market will only make it even more difficult for a seller to sell for there are more than enough homes to choose from.

Kevin Boer on The Innovator’s Dilemma In Real Estate: Beware Of That Redfin Swimming Just Below You, where he applies lessons from Harvard’s Clayton Christensen on how low-cost competitors move up the value chain to real estate brokerage.

If the new entrant succeeds, it starts to take market share from the incumbents, who finally wake up — often too late — and discover that the “cheap, undesirable” part of the market is much larger than they previously thought.