Condo Blog - A Non-Corporate Blog From CondoDomain HQ

I had a great call last night with longtime friend and peer Joe Ferrara - and as always, he got my wheels turning.

I am putting this out on the wire (blog-o-sphere) and hope for any and all ideas & suggestions on proven marketing & PR advice for our new message.

Let’s put all the B.S. aside, all the disgruntled comments from the traditional real estate folks and let’s just talk basics.

At CondoDomain.com we have a pretty unbelievable story to tell.  No we are not curing cancer or saving the planet (I wish I was…but unfortunately I am smack-dab in the middle of the real estate world right now), but the point being is that we are offering a surreal “Too good to be true” kind of product & service.

The Basics:

1.  CondoDomain is a real estate broker, just like RE/MAX, Century 21, Coldwell Banker or any other real estate brand out there. We all claim to be better than one another or have more market share, etc, but bottom line is that we are no different than then mega-brands.  The point here is that any agent that works for one of these firms is just a “person” and that “person” is whom creates the value in the transaction.  So no matter if you are working with RE/MAX or CondoDomain - the better agent will create more value for you - and therefore provide a better service and get you a better deal.  Agree?

2.  Niche:  As a firm we specialize in 1 vertical.  We ONLY work with buyers and we concentrate on urban living which mainly consists of condominiums.  Buying a condominium is different than buying a single family home, that being said, we feel we have an advantage as our ‘agents’ deal with this all day long.  Also, ONLY working with BUYERS allows our “agents” to concentrate on solely that.  Most traditional real estate agents spend the majority of their time marketing themselves to drum up clients/business.  After they get a new client (buyer or a seller) they need to adjust their perspective on how they are going to help them (i.e.  market a new listing or help them find a new home).  At CondoDomain we just work with buyers, 100% of the time, so all we do is tour properties all week long and see up to 10X more listing than the average “top real agent”.  I would put this way up on the list as a major advantage for CondoDomain to serve you as a buyer’s agent, no?

3. Business model:  Without drilling into details or boring you with how our internal systems work, our business model ‘affords’ our team members/agent to work with buyers for a set flat fee.  When we started this business it did not make sense to us that if we helped a buyer buy a home and they spent more money, we got paid more?  Actually, our exact opinion was this is “ass backwards”.  As a buyer’s agent aren’t we supposed to try and help our buyers get the new home or condo for the lowest price possible?  Therefore we implemented the “flat fee”.

Because of how the traditional real estate model is set up & for still operating, we are still compensated a commission based on the percentage of the sales price.  So we simple accept the commission at the closing, subtract our fee due to the firm (which is the exact same for every transaction) and then cut the remainder of the commission back to our client.  Sound fair?

Summary:

To date we have had VERY FEW thought-out rebuttals to our business model.  Most traditionalists classify us as a “discounter” and just write hateful things to us about the model - whatever!    Does anyone out there who does not agree with our model have a “thought out” response to a flat fee based buyers agency?

Our goal as a company, beyond the obvious of helping buyers, is NOT to ruin the real estate industry, but rather provide a very sensible and viable option to consumers.

So…

We are operating a company called CondoDomain that provides a dominant web-based information portal that includes more ‘local’ RE data on one site than any other single source.  We have local real estate agents whom we believe are some of the very best in the industry for calculated reasons.  And we work with every single one of our clients for the exact same set fee and REFUND them back any remainder of the commission.

My guess is that if we were lucky enough to tell every buyer in our market about our business model, 8 out of 10 people would choose us.  So….HOW DO WE TELL OUR AWESOME STORY?

More information visit our website @ www.CondoDomain.com

PRESS RELEASE:

CondoDomain.com is pleased to announce the launch of their web-based buyers’ brokerage business model in the San Diego, CA and Washington D.C. marketplaces.

The Boston based company is now operating in six cities as they expand into their pre-existing 33 markets as a buyers’ brokerage helping buyers search, tour, buy and save thousands via the company’s commission refund policy.

“We are in a wild market at a wild time right now,” noted Tony Longo, the firm’s founder & CEO.   “We are witnessing traditional real estate companies cut back, reduce staff, and in some instances close their doors.  Our ability not only to stay alive, but to continue growing is directly connected with our technology-centric business model and our savvy, value-oriented clients whom choose to work with the firm.”

As the appointed City Vice President and natives of their prospective cities, real estate brokers Cleve Shirley of San Diego, CA and Khalil El-Ghoul of Washington, D.C. will now run all of the real estate operations and work with local buyers looking to purchase in San Diego and Washington D.C.

At a time of increased economic concern, CondoDomain.com offers consumers a choice and a way to save money when they need it most. On average, CondoDomain.com clients have received more than $13,000 in commission refunds at closing.

Shirley and El-Ghoul will run the San Diego and DC operations with commitment and passion for their markets and will now strive to become a valuable resource for buyers in this new Internet home buying era.

Search The New Sites:  San Diego Condos | DC Condos

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About CondoDomain.com
CondoDomain.com is a web-based real estate brokerage based in Boston, MA. The company is expanding nationwide to offer its buyers’ brokerage business model in more than 30 cities around the U.S. Currently operating in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, San Diego and Washington D.C.   CondoDomain offers an innovative flat-fee business model allowing the majority of the commission to be refunded back to the buyer. By combining up-to-date MLS feeds, new construction buildings, FSBO, Foreclosures, Lofts and Auction listings all on one site, CondoDomain has become one of the most popular and user friendly real estate websites available. CondoDomain.com offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee to all of its clients, ensuring a professional, efficient, and pleasant transaction. Visit www.CondoDomain.com for more information or feel free to dive into our blogs at www.CondoDomain.com/Blog.

Press Contact:
Erica Farthing
Director of Social Media
617.849.4993
erica@condodomain.com

Whoa! What is going on out there in this real estate world this month?  Hot off the press today some major movement in the discount real estate brokerage business, & mainstream real estate media verticals.

Redfin - which announced a few weeks ago to layoff a big % of their staff has rolled out another adjustment to their offering plan for buyers and sellers in the 8 markets that they serve.  Today they announce: Redfin Upgrades Online Brokerage Service on their very nicely new fresh designed website.  Great work guys.  Looking sharp!

Zillow - (via the Sellius Blog and Inman News ) announced that the real estate media company Zillow has chosen to give up all but two of its state real estate broker licenses as a cost cutting measure. (It kept Washington and Texas). On October 17, 2008, Zillow CEO Rich Barton publicly announced the layoff of 25% of its workforce.)

Zip Realty - Zip Realty adds 551 real estate agents in an aggressive recruting effort and boosts sales.  ZipRealty Inc. managed to trim third-quarter losses to $1.7 million as the company added 551 agents and took advantage of continued turnover of foreclosed properties to achieve double-digit growth in sales and revenue from a year ago.

From the street level it looks like all these major movements to innovate this stale traditional industry is taking a beating because of nationwide market declines.  In short, Redfin tacks on is giving less commission rebates back but offering up more services and dedicated time to their clients.  Zip is taking the old old OLD tactic of add more agents and get more deals - yikes.   And Zillow who really stands separate from the pack as an ad based business is a clear impression that there is less $$$ being spent in the industry at this current time.  Will all these companies survive … absolutely, and we are a big fan of all of them.

CondoDomain.com - (A little “self love”) -  Little’ole CondoDomain.com still sits quiet in the pack (even though we are yelling as loud as we can)  on the sidelines.  Bootstrapped to the max, operating in 4 markets (soon to be 6 this week), our mini-Redfin web-based buyers brokerage business model is trending in the opposite direction.  Possiblly hte markets we are in?  Maybe our cheap flimzy business cards and marketing material?  Who knows, but we are excited to be growing in a time like this.  A little birdie told me that San Diego & Washington DC will have a CondoDomain website & buyers brokerage business model there veryyyyyy soon.

(Photo above:  Museum Tower, Dallas TX)

Calling all Real Estate Developers and Sales & Marketing firms:  Spruce up your new condo development on the leading condominium website - CondoDomain.com.

We have done our very best job to keep our website up-to-date with the most current information and multi-media, but we can never do the job of your marketing team.

The marketing team just updated their project - Museum Tower - in Dallas, TX and it looks so much better than the job we did.  Check out the new gorgeous renderings and updated photos, and we are posting their video soon too!

Developers/Marketing Firms: Remember posting your condominium development on our website is 100% free. We take pride in having the most informative urban real estate website out there….so if you are on our site, please contact us to update it.  If you don’t see your new condo development on the site - please go ahead and add it for free!.

Live in 4 cities:  Atlanta Condos | Boston Condos | Charlotte Condos | Dallas Condos

Coming Soon:  Baltimore Condos | DC Condos | Philadelphia Condos | San Diego Condos

Today I walked into my office and got a Gtalk message from one of my best friends who now lives in Geneva, Switzerland as a Money Broker.   The title - “Dude check this out!  Right up your alley here…”

The link, a Bloomberg article titled: New York Condo Buyers Wary of McCain Get Obama-Loss Loophole

In short, the article states that a New York condo buyer has put in an offer to purchase the $4.16M condo that basically will be NULL and VOID if Barack Obama is NOT elected president.

Noted in the article:

“Call it the Obama contingency. Buyers at the building called +aRt will be released from their purchase contract “no questions asked” should the Democratic candidate lose to John McCain on Nov. 4, said Erik Ekstein, president of Ekstein Development”

“We’ve been trying to move some of our product and one of the major stumbling blocks has been political,” Ekstein said. “This being New York, people are looking forward to his taking office,” he said of Obama.

“Some would-be buyers visited the building, discussed financing, and then said they feared McCain, Ekstein said. Victory by the Republican will trigger the escape hatch for anyone who signs a sales agreement before then.”

No sales have been made yet, but I would agree with Morrison that this could ‘Only happen in NY’.

Read the rest of the article here.

Search all NY Condos

Can ya Digg it?

I am pleased to announce that we have pushed our Atlanta & Charlotte sites live today.

Partnering with the best we have landed the finest real estate brokers on the ground in both Atlanta and Charlotte to work with all CondoDomain clients looking to buy and save on their next condo purchase!

In Atlanta, GA

Ursula Henry

Ursula is veteran in the condo space and an expert Atlanta real estate agent.  Ursula works for Harry Norman which is the top Atlanta Real Estate firm!  Looking to buy a new condo in Atlanta?  We are now pleased to say that we “got you covered”.

Meet Ursula

Search Atlanta Condos

In Charlotte, NC

Terry McDonald

Terry is one of Charlotte’s top real estate agents, fellow blogger and Charlotte condominium expert.  Terry works for Charlotte’s 2nd largest real estate firm:  Wilkinson & Associates. Relocating to Charlotte?  Terry is your guy!

Meet Terry

Search Charlotte Condos

Both Ursula & Terry join the rapidly growing “Condo Team”.  Now with presence in 4 cities:  Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte & Dallas - the group aims to cater to the ever-growing trend of online real estate.

“We have given back more than $300,000 in commission rebates in Boston alone this year…I can not wait to see how much we give back when we are nationwide!” - Brian-Logan Reid, National Director of Real Estate

We also want to thank our dynamite Boston web design team - DreamingCode - for making this all a reality in a very short timespan.  Our organic rankings are what are carrying our business right now!  Thanks guys.

This is awful news for Redfin and all their great employees.  I really feel bad for all whom have had to experience this.  Its an awful time for anyone that has to go through this.  I remember that day when I was at Sun Microsystems (my first job out of school) and watched a huge group of people get laid off right then and there…called into a room and left 15 minutes later.  Anyways…Redfin’ers, I met many of you out there when I visited your shop last year, something great will come out of this.  Hang in there.

Glenn, the stand up guy he is, speaks well of the matter on the Redfin Blog.

More new on the Redfin Layoff’s here, here & here.

What does this mean for the rest of us?  What about our baby CondoDomain.com (a Non-VC backed, boot-strapped, shoe-string tied, east coast based competitor to Redfin?)

Well…I am really not sure right now. I tell you though, we are moving forward with a very aggressive roll-out plan to get our flat-fee buyers brokerage business model into all of our pre-existing 33 U.S. markets.  With Charlotte & Atlanta to go live tomorrow, I guess it will be our first true test to see if we can pull it off and grow while others settle-in or shrink.

Similarities that we share with Redfin: Similar business model, savvy workforce, passion driven & all digital.

Differences: No funding, no direct license structure, local broker partners instead of employees.

Times are tough - but our strenghts of a young, agile & small startup is the only thing we got going for us right now.  Possibly our non-licensed structure will be a savior in this market time.  Partnering with local real estate brokers has been a much better experince than I expected  (thanks BL)!   As noted to the team this a.m….lets see how lean and mean we can make this thing go!

Redfin’ers…keep your heads up…and best of luck with your next step in your career.

Although we have been slowing updating the Atlanta Condo Blog, we are prepping to launch our search site hopefully this week.  CondoDomain has been in Atlanta, GA since early 2006 with our old ‘advertisement based” business model.  We are estatic to be launch our brand new web-based, flat fee buyers brokerage model in the Atlanta Condo market!  Searching for Atlanta Condos?  there is only one place to go now: www.Atlanta.CondoDomain.com - your source for everything Atlanta Condos!

As always we are partnering with the Best.  It Atlanta we have partnered with one of Buckheads top Real Estate Brokers - Ursula Henry from Harry Norman.   Ursula will be our City Vice President in the Atlanta Metro region promoting luxury condominium sales and our innovative web-based flat fee buyers brokerage business model.  Check in later this week for the grand opening of CondoDomain Atlanta.

Search:  Atlanta Condos

I added a new page called Real Estate Rebate yesterday to the CondoDomain website.  The page outlines how commission rebates and refunds work, etc.  The page is kind of cluttered and “wordy” … I would love some feedback on this page so please shoot me a note if you have an opinion on how I can make this more clear to consumers surfing our site!

Here is a quick sound bite:

A real estate rebate (or commission refund) is exactly that - a portion of the real estate commission that is paid to the licensed real estate brokers, rebated back to you, the buyer or seller.

The only people allowed to be compensated in a real estate transaction are the two licensed real estate “brokers” AND (in most states *) the buyer and or the seller in the transaction can participate in the commission.

Here at CondoDomain.com, we are a full-service licensed real estate brokerage that believes in a flat-fee, transparent business model. We work with each and every one of our clients for the exact same flat fee commission and we rebate you the remainder.

Visit the page

Actually, we would love any feedback on any of our content pages on the company, including:  Compare Us, How It Works, Our Guarantee, Buyer’s Broker, About Us & Careers.

Remember, we opened the Dallas marketplace so if your searching for Dallas Condos and would like to buy and recieve a real estate rebate - were now open

Many of you have asked us in the past:

“So when I get my commission refund in form of a check after the closing, am I taxed on this as income?”

The Answer: No, you are not.  Commission refunds given from CondoDomain.com to you are not considered taxable income.

While we are pretty good at math and very good at giving our customers back big checks at closing…we are not accountants and don’t mean to give any tax advise.  Please read below on a favorable ruling from the IRS in which Redfin (one of our fav’s) got in their request.

IRS Rules That Redfin Does Not Have to Report
Commission Refunds as Taxable Income

SEATTLE - March 7, 2007: Online real estate broker Redfin Corporation today announced a ruling from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service that Redfin does not have to issue Form 1099 to customers that receive commission refunds because such amounts generally are not taxable as income. Redfin is notifying all of its home-buying customers by mail that the company will not report their commission refunds to the IRS.

Redfin Direct combines an e-commerce application with the services of a local, experienced Redfin agent who handles home tours, pricing advice, offer presentation, negotiations, inspections and the closing process. Home-buyers who can find a home to buy on their own get two-thirds of Redfin’s commission refunded at closing.

Across Washington and California, Redfin’s average commission refund is more than $10,000. Redfin customers typically apply their refund to closing costs, which include loan fees, local property taxes and escrow-related costs as well as an initial mortgage payment. As the commission refund usually exceeds closing costs by thousands of dollars, Redfin often issues its customers a check for the excess.

Prior to Redfin Direct, commission refunds in excess of closing costs were relatively rare, and no ruling existed as to whether such amounts were required to be reported on Form 1099. Accordingly, Redfin petitioned the IRS in November 2006 for a ruling, which Redfin received from the IRS last week.

Because an individual or corporation can only petition the IRS on its own behalf, Redfin could only seek a ruling to clarify its own reporting obligation, not to address the individual circumstance of each customer’s tax return. The ruling does however state that “a payment or credit at closing from [Redfin] represents an adjustment to the purchase price of the home and generally is not includible in a purchaser’s gross income.’

In support of its ruling, the IRS cites guidance addressing a non-profit’s down-payment assistance to low-income families buying houses or a manufacturer’s rebate on a car, neither of which are taxable. The full text of the ruling is available on Redfin’s blog.

“Seeking a ruling from the IRS is not an insignificant undertaking,” said Redfin VP of Real Estate Operations David Wilner. “Rather than having hundreds of customers make inquiries with the IRS on a case-by-case basis, we felt it was the right thing to do as part of our commitment to supporting customers through every phase of the home-buying process from offer to close and beyond.”

Check out this article released by the Associated Press regarding negotiating a real estate commission from traditional full-service real estate companies.   Now most of this article really compares the “Sell Side” of the business and not the “Buy Side” where many innovative companies have really come in to shake up the industry such as  - umm Zip Realty, Redfin, Iggy’s House, BlueRoof & umm us (CondoDomain.com).

Don’t be shy about haggling over what you pay your real estate agent.   A study released Monday by Consumer Reports found 71 percent of sellers who negotiated for lower commissions with their brokers were successful. But only 46 percent of sellers surveyed tried.Those who paid commissions of 3 percent were just as satisfied with their broker’s performance as those who paid 6 percent, the study found.

The lesson? Haggling won’t hurt.

In fact, those who paid higher commissions were more likely to have regrets about the selling experience. Nearly one-third of them said they should have been more aggressive in negotiating a fee.

Sellers were most likely to get lower fees from independent and RE/MAX brokers, said Mark Kotkin, director of survey research at Consumer Reports.

“But they will all negotiate. Just ask for it,” he said. “It’s like buying a car. A lot of people think (the price) is set, but it’s not.”

Independent brokers may be more likely to negotiate fees since they keep their entire commission, while those who work for other brokers typically split commissions with the broker in exchange for marketing and office support.

About half the home sellers surveyed paid less than 6 percent in commission. The study is being published in Consumer Reports’ September issue. The issue also includes tips on which home improvements provide the biggest pay off.

Continued…