A service used at Gulf Access Realty-Listing Book

Listingbook brings 'AI' to real estate search

By Matt Carter
Inman News™

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Listingbook LLC says it's bringing "advanced intelligence" to client management with the latest version of its property search platform, which lets real estate agents track their clients' interests and prompts them to take action that will keep buyers and sellers on track for a closing.
The Greensboro, N.C.-based company said today it's also added neighborhood boundaries, school attendance zones, and public tax record data to the second generation of its property search and client management system, dubbed Listingbook AI.
For consumers who are willing to sign up to work with an agent, Listingbook AI provides access to multiple listing service data that the company says is even more comprehensive than what consumers get from brokers operating Virtual Office Websites (VOWs).
Real estate agents who belong to one of 54 MLSs that have agreements with Listingbook can register to use the platform at no charge. A $19.95 monthly subscription is required to access branded marketing tools and detailed insight into how clients are using the site, such as property search criteria and homes viewed, favorited or rejected.
Listingbook AI analyzes clients' behavior and usage patterns, offering agents advice on what to do next to keep them on the path to a sale.
"Clients will tell you how to manage them if you are able to collaborate with them on their search activity," said Listingbook COO Todd John.
Computer scientists and science fiction writers often use AI as shorthand for "artificial intelligence." Listingbook says the "AI" in Listingbook AI stands for "advanced intelligence."
Either way, the underlying concept -- that Listingbook AI will play an active role in client management -- is the same, and applies to sellers as well.
Agents can use the application's drip marketing system to send automatic updates to clients -- "Morning Reports" -- that highlight price changes on properties in a buyer's search area, for example, or recent sales that alert sellers to changing market conditions.
"Agents want sellers to set realistic prices," John said. "Agents tell us they can use Listingbook to win price reductions from clients."
Listingbook may not be be a household name with consumers yet, but the company sees the latest version of its real estate search platform as a direct competitor with -- and alternative to -- big listing portals like Realtor.com, Zillow and Trulia.
Getting clients off of consumer-facing listing portals and into Listingbook is one way to make sure that agents and their clients are literally on the same page.
"It's important for clients and their agents to collaborate on the same search, instead of one using Realtor.com and the other using the MLS," John said.
Listingbook managers also point out to agents and brokers that their clients will never see ads for competing real estate firms next to listings -- or anywhere else on the site, for that matter. Zillow and Trulia have raised the hackles of some brokers by running ads for buyer's agents next to listings -- a money-making technique Realtor.com is also experimenting with in seven test markets.
The incentive for consumers to collaborate with an agent and do their house hunting through Listingbook is access to a richer set of listings data, plus community and school information sourced from third-party providers such as Onboard Informatics, Maponics, Lender Processing Services, and Microsoft Bing.
Listingbook AI offers tools that help buyers find, compare and research properties in a user-friendly interface. Agents can help sellers gauge interest in their home by showing how many buyers and agents have viewed their listing.
Password-protected VOW sites like those operated by Redfin and ZipRealty employ a similar model, attracting consumers by providing access to historical listings data such as previous asking price and sales price history, days on market, and recent sales of comparable properties.
John said that while Listingbook is not a VOW, it obtains access to listing data through agreements with 57 MLSs and operates under the same rules that govern VOWs.
Consumers don't have unrestricted access to the MLS through Listingbook -- only agents can see commission splits offered to cooperating brokers, for example, and consumers can't search for expired or withdrawn listings. But the information Listingbook can provide "goes beyond VOW," John said, with "hundreds of data fields" for each listing and six years of sold data in some markets.
While real estate property search sites attract about 40 million unique visitors a month, he said, "Nobody has put their flag in the ground to say, 'We are the standard in search.' " That's what the company is attempting to do, he said, as it transitions MLSs that are live on its existing platform over to Listingbook AI.
The Tucson Association of REALTORS®, owner of TAR/MLS, will be the first major MLS in the nation to offer members Listingbook AI, the company announced today.
John said Listingbook has new agreements with MLSs in three additional markets -- Nashville, Orlando, and South Broward County, Fla. -- that will be implemented in the next 30 to 60 days. Deals are pending with six other "hot prospects," he said, that would bring to 63 the total number of MLSs providing data to Listingbook.
Michael Ondrejko, executive vice president of product and brand management for the company, said Listingbook customizes its interface to account for unique characteristics of individual markets, including property types and descriptions. In Jacksonville, Fla., for example, flood zones are displayed in map searches.
Because buyers using Listingbook "are very far down the path," they tend to be more active than visitors to consumer-facing listing portals, Ondrejko said, each registering up to 200 page views per month compared with 10 or 15 page views at competing sites.
Listingbook claims 1.2 million unique visitors and 60 million page views per month. About 170,000 agents and 2 million of their clients and prospects have opened Listingbook accounts during the last three years, the company said. Listingbook is now available to more than 500,000 agents, and John said there's a "heavy user group" of about 30,000 agents who use the service on a daily basis.
It's enough traffic that Listingbook.com sometimes appears on a list of top 20 real estate websites compiled by Experian Hitwise. In April, for example, Listingbook.com was the 19th-most visited real estate on the Hitwise top 20 list of real estate-category sites -- nine places behind ZipRealty, which this year began using its VOW website to provide leads to brokerages in markets it's not active in through its "Powered by Zip" referral program.
Listingbook took over a consumer-facing listing portal, Cyberhomes.com, from LPS last year. John said the move was primarily a strategic play for access to the portal's MLS clients and public property records. At the time the deal was struck, Listingbook.com was generating more traffic than Cyberhomes.com.

Pine Island Activities for this weekend!

FRIDAY, OCT 14:

Enjoy live music at Bert’s Bar, Miceli’s Restaurant, Bubba’s Roadhouse & Saloon.


Tarpon Lodge hosts a free wine tasting with music by Corinna Girard, 6 – 8:30 pm. Reservations for dinner recommended. Pineland.


SATURDAY, OCT. 15:


Barge Party # 4 at Two Pines, located in northern Matlacha Pass, ½ mile east of Marker 79 (GPS coordinates 82 05.5/26 41.5). Music by Deb & the Dynamics and Ground Zero. 11 Am – 5:30 PM. Bring your boat and enjoy a great day of music, food and beverage. Help raise money for breast cancer awareness, all proceeds going to From Our Hearts, a Pine Island organization. Contact Jim Frock at Seven Seas 239-283-1674 for more information.


Adult Health Fair at Pine Island United Methodist Church, Pine Island Road at Pine Island Center. Free health fair sponsored by the Beacon of HOPE, with wellness screenings. Flu shots available at minimal cost – can be covered by Medicare or private insurance. 10 am – 2 pm.


Kids Read Down Fines at Pine Island Library, 1 – 3 pm. Earn a $2 coupon for every 15 minutes of reading during the allotted time in the designated area of the library.


Live music at area locations.


SUNDAY, OCT. 16:


Live music at area locations.


Great fishing, boating, kayaking, nature tours are available any day of the week; check out the local guides, marinas and shops for what’s best this weekend. The public boat ramp in Bokeelia has reopened.


Music can be enjoyed at:


Bert’s Bar & Grill, Bubba’s Roadhouse, Miceli’s, Pine Island Moose, Pine Island Elks, Tarpon Lodge, Bokeelia Cracker Café.

The Importance of a Pre Approval Letter

Do you understand how important it is to have a pre-approval letter before you begin your home buying process? Many potential buyers will submit a pre-qualification letter to their Realtors before viewing homes. Many do nothing. And how many times has a buyer found a home only to discover later they can not get financing to buy their dream?

A pre-approval letter is more reliable than a pre-qualification letter. Pre-qualification letters take very little time to generate with only a quick interview and exchange of information between a borrow and a lender. The pre-approval process, though, while more time consuming, involves verification of the information. Buyers will have to take the time to provide financial documentation to the lender to support their claims. The good news though, is that getting, a pre-approval letter before you start shopping for a home you are more likely to get the home that you want!

Inacccuracies from Listing Websites like Zillow, Trulia, and Home Sites

I often get calls from property owners demanding that I change the information that is posted on Zillow. "My home is worth WAY more than that!" I have had property owners call who have their property listed for sale when in fact it is not. "Take that off there!" they say to me. I have to patiently explain that I just advertise on the that website, and I do not write the content. I can tell they do not believe me.

There was an article posted to day in the Philadelphia Inquirer. "In the old days, if you were looking for a new place to live, you picked up the local newspaper, looked at the real estate classifieds, put on comfortable shoes or gassed up the car, and began a house-to-house search.The Internet has made the job easier, at least on your feet. In short order, you can look at all kinds of sales and rental listings just about anywhere – around the block or across the country. "
But the important question is how reliable are websites such as Zillow, Trulia, HomeGain, and a growing number of others?

Ken Shuman, head of communications at Trulia, says that his website obtained information on 95 million houses from county assessors’ offices nationwide and Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions, a data provider. Details about Zillow’s 100-million-plus homes, both for rent and for sale comes in from public-record data, real estate brokerages, users of our information (consumers), and real estate agents directly.
As a Real Estate Broker, I , and many other Real Estate agents take issue with these website flaws, as well as with the values the sites place on houses, for sale or not.
When asked whether I recommended these sites to consumers, I say, "Not a reliable source."

I think they can play a helpful part when someone is just beginning their search as a Buyer, but it is not so for a Seller looking to compare numbers. Estimates of value offered on some websites, such as Zillow’s “Zestimates,” are unreliable, using the formula that determine them “is akin to throwing arrows at a dartboard. You rarely know where it is going to land.”

There is sometimes a 90-day delay in obtaining data, said the three-month “rolling average” the Trulia site offers is based on properties within municipalities rather than within metropolitan statistical areas.When people buy houses, they are looking for specific places – a city, town, or neighborhood. “MSAs can skew numbers. There are often dramatic differences from neighborhood to neighborhood.”Trulia lets consumers “leverage” information about houses. “People often save homes from the site if they are not interested in buying them. If they are following a property, we serve them up recent comps (comparable sales) so they can manually update that information.”

HomeGain has an “instant home-prices tool” that allows an owner to recalculate a price range that might be better if actual amenities and square footage of living space were addressed. It doesn’t affect the information from official sources.
Regarding the accuracy of location and school information, Trulia, Zillow, and HomeGain all said owners could update details posted about their homes.“If you feel your house is misrepresented on Trulia, you can update the information as long as the house is off-market,” Shuman said. “We hope to get edited information for houses on the market, but right now we are trying not to tussle with listing agents.”Zillow requires people trying to update descriptions to prove that they are the homeowners. It’s tough to pinpoint all but obvious misrepresentations, but the company says “we do filter for owners giving erroneous information about home or area, and eliminate the data from the models.”The issue, for some, seems to be not so much the information the websites offer but what consumers might take away from it.“When you want to get an idea of what your home is worth for a refinance, those sites can tell you the wrong value,” a local mortgage broker says, “If the appraisal comes in lower, it may mean a higher interest rate than you were expecting.”Zillow’s Jill Simmons said, “Zestimates are an estimate – a starting point in determining a home’s value,” not the actual value of a property.
The data on Zillow “are tools to help consumers make better real estate decisions,” Simmons said, “but we always recommend that people who want to buy, sell, or refinance engage a local professional like an appraiser or a real estate agent.

Here at GULF ACCESS REALTY we are always ready to give you accurate information! Call today!

Hundreds wait in line for help to save their homes

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – July 13, 2011 – Some homeowners emerged jubilant from the Westin Diplomat Resort on Monday, snagging instant mortgage modifications during a daylong event in Hollywood.Others weren’t as lucky.In the first two hours, 612 people applied for help from the Help for Homeowners Community Event that was sponsored by the federal government’s Making Home Affordable Program. Struggling homeowners formed lines to register and then to meet with loan officers or counselors at the resort.“It goes to show you that a lot of South Florida homeowners are struggling,” said Andrea Risotto, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury that was helping oversee the event.She blamed the sour job market. Most interviewed said they had lost jobs and fallen behind on payments. Florida’s unemployment rate is 10.6 percent, much higher than the national average.Mercy Del Toro of Miami said she and her family were among the lucky ones. Their lender combined two home loans into one with a lower interest rate, she said. The new loan has lower payments, to be made over a longer time.“We will be able to stay in our home,” a beaming Del Toro said.The amount owed stays the same. “That’s the bad news,” Del Toro said.Marva Gyles of Fort Lauderdale said she is still waiting to see what happens with her loan. Her lender said Monday that she qualified for a loan modification, but she didn’t have anything firm yet.“I’ve been down this road before,” she said. Indeed, many South Floridians have become frustrated at attending events or applying for programs that don’t deliver promised loan relief. After two years of seeking help, Gyles said she still hadn’t been able to modify her loan. Meanwhile, she lost a job but found a new one.Getting a more affordable loan will help her get back to a normal life, she said.Lily Calderon, of Pompano Beach, said she and her husband, Oscar, don’t even have a promise of a loan modification.She has been out of work as a customer service representative for two years. She and her husband were told Monday by their lender that they couldn’t qualify for help. “We don’t have enough income,” he said.Even if their loan were modified, the couple wouldn’t be able to afford a new mortgage payment, they were told. “But I can’t get a job,” Lily Calderon said. “It’s like a circle.”Treasury spokeswoman Risotto said part of Monday’s program was to connect struggling homeowners with people they can contact at their lenders. Homeowners have complained about banks repeatedly losing documents and not having anyone to check on the status of an application to modify a loan.Homeowners also could meet with housing counselors at nonprofit agencies that offer services free and are certified by the federal government to provide housing information, said Brad Dwin, spokesman for the nonprofit Hope Now that was created by lenders, investors, counselors and others.For those who couldn’t attend Monday’s meeting, help is not out of reach.Hud.gov has an online list of free government-approved counselors, said Kevin Maher, director of community education for the nonprofit Consumer Credit Management Systems in Delray Beach.The counselors may know of special programs that banks don’t, Maher said. For example, Palm Beach County has programs to help some struggling homeowners, he said.The state also has $1 billion in the Florida Hardest Hit program to give people up to $18,000 for up to six months of mortgage payments, Maher said.The Obama administration also has a new program, starting Aug. 1, that will give unemployed homeowners with FHA loans a break on part or all of their mortgage payments for up to 12 months.To qualify, the unemployed will have to be 90 days delinquent on their loans, said Brian Sullivan, a U.S. Housing and Urban Development spokesman.Those mortgage companies participating in the Making Home Affordable Program also will be required to give the yearlong reprieve “whenever possible,” according to a HUD statement.Copyright © 2011 Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Donna Gehrke-White, Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Thank you SW Florida

Susan Burhoe Selected For "Southwest Florida 2011 Real Estate Agents"
Susan Burhoe of Matlacha, FL has been honored with a recognition by Gulfshore Life in its selection of "Southwest Florida 2011 Real Estate Agents."
Matlacha, FL (PRNewsWire) May 31, 2011
Announcing a special recognition appearing in the May, 2011 issue of Gulfshore Life published by Gulfshore Media, Inc.. Susan Burhoe was selected for the following honor:
Southwest Florida 2011 Real Estate Agents
Susan Burhoe commented on the recognition: "This is quite an honor for me. Since Gulfshore Life chose only a select number of professionals for their Southwest Florida 2011 Real Estate Agents list, I am especially proud to have made the grade. Being included signals that my constant effort to deliver excellent work has paid off. It is gratifying and exciting to be recognized in this way."
Following the publication of Susan Burhoe's selection for Gulfshore Life's Southwest Florida 2011 Real Estate Agents list, American Registry seconded the honor and added Susan Burhoe to its "Registry of Business Excellence™".
For more information on Susan Burhoe, located in Matlacha, FL please call 239-283-5450.
Southwest Florida 2011 Real Estate Agents list. For more information, search The Registry at http://www.americanregistry.com.
Contact Info:
Susan Burhoe
Phone: 239-283-5450
Email address: susan@gulfaccessrealty.com
Susan Burhoe Selected For "Southwest Florida 2011 Real Estate Agents".

The 5 Most Common Complaints of Short Sale and REO Buyers (and How to Avoid Them)

Roughly forty percent of the homes for sale on today's market are short sales and foreclosures! Distressed properties are well known for their value (a reputation which is sometimes accurate, and sometimes not), but they also have a reputation for causing buyers to become distressed, too!

Transactional snafus, last-minute surprises and long, drawn-out escrows that never close seem to be par for the course.

Instead of avoiding these properties altogether, get educated about the most common dramas that go down in these deals, and how you can avoid falling victim.

1.  Run-on (and on, and on) escrows.  When you’re buying a home (or selling one, for that matter), time is absolutely of the essence.  And buyers reasonably expect that the big time suck in real estate is in the house hunting process itself; seems like once you find a home you want to buy and the seller agrees to your price and terms, things should move pretty quickly, right?

Not so much, when it comes to some distressed property sales. I’ve heard tell of the occasional, swiftly-moving escrow on an REO (real estate owned - by the bank). But for the most part, these transactions take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks longer than “regular” sales, because of the extra signatures, supervisor-level approvals and even investor involvement required to seal the deal.  Banks don’t have the same sense of urgency individual home sellers do, and it’s not uncommon for the people who need to sign on the dotted line to be on vacation or scattered across the country, adding days’ or weeks’ worth of time to the escrow.

And short sales are also an entirely different animal when it comes to escrow time lines. While a standard sale from an individual seller to an individual buyer might take 45 days from contract to closing, a short sale can take anywhere from 45 days to 6 or 8 months (!) to get the deal closed, after the seller has accepted the contract.

Avoid the drama by: expecting your escrow to run long, and being pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t.  Expectation management is everything. Make sure you take these extended time lines into account when you’re working with your mortgage broker on the issue of when to lock your interest rate, and how long your rate locks will last. You might even need to plan on and/or set aside an allowance for the cost of extending your low interest rate, if rates are rising rapidly during the time you’re waiting for the deal to be done.
2.  Bank won't take low ball offer.  If I had a dollar for every time I’ve received a question from an outraged reader to the effect that a buyer has had their short sale or REO offer rejected on grounds that it was too low,  even though the bank has no other offers, I could buy a foreclosure myself (admittedly, it’d be one of those $150 foreclosures in some blighted town with tax liens and no plumbing, but still).

Banks owe their shareholders and investors a duty to get as much as they can for these properties. Just because you see it’s on the market and listed as a short sale or a foreclosure doesn’t mean they’re going to give it to you for a fraction of its worth. The bank’s goal is to get a purchase price as close as possible to the home’s fair market value, as determined by the recent sales prices of similar, nearby homes, with some adjustments made for the property’s condition.  Fact is, many banks would rather see the listing agent reduce the price by a moderate amount, and wait to see what offers come in, than to accept an offer 30 percent below the asking price just because there are no other offers on the table.

Avoid the drama by:  working with your agent to make a realistic offer, based on recent comparable sales in the neighborhood, not just on what you think you can get away with.  You can waste a lot of time, spin a lot of wheels and lose out on a lot of properties making low ball offer after low ball offer on distressed homes. Sit down with your broker or agent, review the ‘comps’ and make a smart offer that reflects a good value for you, is within your budget and is not bizarrely out of the realm of the fair market value of the property.

3.  Last minute postponements/cancellations.  These transactions have an uncanny way of being delayed at the last minute - or never going through at all, through no fault of the wanna-be buyer. You signed docs yesterday, put your dog in the crate this morning and just hopped in the moving truck, only to get a text from your broker that the deal didn’t close because the escrow company which was selected by the bank flubbed the check boxes on a single sheet of paper (it happens). Or, you’ve been in contract (with the seller) on a short sale for four months, and the bank refuses the sale entirely because the seller refuses to kick even $1 of their own cash into the deal, despite having a flush savings account.

Avoid the drama by:  staying as flexible as possible with your moving plans as long as possible.  Best practice is to plan on some overlap between the time you can be in your last place and your scheduled move-in date.  Also, if you’re in contract on a short sale, you should take the point of view that you don't have a firm deal until you get the bank’s approval of the transaction. So don’t even think about starting to make moving plans or paying for home inspections and appraisals until you know the bank has greenlit the deal and that the purchase price and terms they’ve approved work for both you and the seller.

4.  The bank’s black box.   Make an offer on a normal home and you’re likely to know what the outcome will be within a few hours or a few days, at the outside. If things take longer because the seller is out of town or some such, the listing agent tells you that, and you at least know what’s going on.

Make an offer on a bank-owned property or a short sale?  It’s a crap shoot - could be days, but could also, easily, be weeks or months before you know what’s going on.  And no amount of calling, pleading, prodding or nudging is likely to get you much information on how your offer or the seller’s short sale application is being handled or what (if any) progress is being made.  And that “black box” into which your offer disappears at the bank level is very frustrating.

Avoid the drama by:  continuing your house hunt until you have an answer back.  Maniacally pestering the listing agent for answers or harassing your buyer’s broker into spending hours on hold with the bank is highly unlikely to get you any insight. (With that said, it does make sense for your agent to check in regularly - sometimes even daily -  with a short sale or REO listing agent to stay updated on any developments with the property and to make sure your offer/transaction stays in the front of their mind.)  

Most of the angst in these situations arises when a buyer feels they passed on properties that would have really worked for them when they pinned their hopes on a distressed home.  You can only control your efforts and activities, not the bank’s.  So, consult with your own broker or agent about staying proactive in viewing and even pursuing other properties until you have a firm “yes” from the bank on your short sale or REO offer.  Until that time, and usually for a short time after you get the bank's approval, you have the right to back out of the transaction if you need to (make sure your broker briefs you on precisely when your right to rescind your offer or exercise contingencies - i.e., bail - will expire).

5.  Double standards. In a “regular” equity sale with no bank involvement, both buyer and seller are obligated to meet various time lines.  Seller has to provide disclosures by X date, open the property to inspections - with utilities on - by Y, and close and move out by Z.  REO and short sale buyers, on the other hand, are often dismayed to find that  even though the bank might take weeks or months to sign or handle its deliverables, the bank will insist that the buyer show up, sign or send a check quick-like.

Avoid the drama by: chalking it up to the (admittedly irritating) way things are - the price you pay to buy from the bank.  Realize that working with the bank on the bank’s terms is unavoidable when you buy a distressed property. Then, go into the deal with realistic expectations - including the expectation that the bank will drag its feet, despite expecting you to keep every deadline - and you’ll be less frustrated, and less likely to make poor decisions out of frustration.

Also, make sure you do respond in a timely manner to the bank’s requests and your obligations under the contract.  I’ve seen banks capitalize on buyer delays in returning signatures and removing contingencies to accept higher offers they received in the interim.  Don’t lose your home on a technicality because you assume that the bank’s lackadaisacal timelines apply to you as well.