What’s Your Biggest Fear?

And I’m not talking about financialphobia, but Ophidiophobia and Alektorophobia.

There’s an interesting discussion in Redfin Forums about which, if any, animals are acceptable neighbors.

stillsearching is terrified of snakes, but not chickens. BadKittyM is the exact opposite. Then there’s mzmeshell with a $8,000-lizard-meets-shovel tale.

What about you? Would you cozy up to bobcats or Komodo dragons?

My friend Stacy was freaked out about neighborhood raccoons lurking around her children, ready to bite. The solution was simple. Her mom had been secretly feeding them three meals a day and agreed to stop. They scampered off to another sugar mama.

Tell us your animal tails.

(photocredit: Animal Outfitter)

Livin’ La Vida Guava

There’s a home for sale in Foothill Ranch, California that looks custom-painted for Elle Woods, Barbie, Angelyne or Paris Hilton.

Some witty Forums posters are having fun with this one (TrabucoDom – thanks for the tip!):

• “Now I can safely say I have a good idea of what it would be like to live inside a guava.” writes BadKittyM …  “Just be happy it’s not the inside of an avocado,” ToadB shoots back.
• “I think it is the pepto dismal home!,” pens TracucoDom.
• “Paris Hilton would say ‘that’s hot!’,” comments stillsearching.
• Helyes_Lopez claims, “I saw Angelyne in her pepto dismal pink Corvette the other day. She made an offer on the property just the other day.”
• “Barbie foreclosed, too!,” writes teachere.

There were a couple people who liked the pretty-in-pink paint calling it “AMAZING” and better than the “sad snow white kitchens.”

But Talyssa was the only one to look under the paint … now, I dare you to resist the urge to take a peek.

Buyers Obsessed

When researching a home, do you request past utility bills, not for the last year, but during the three hottest summer months and the three coldest summer months?

Redfin Forums poster Peanut77, a 31-year old homebuyer, does and is curious if her borderline-OCD research is “weird.” She just wants to make sure her and her partner can afford the mortgage and utilities, while still saving money and having fun.

Fellow posters haven’t gone to those extremes, but no one called her a nut, like her name implies. Personally, I think she is one smart cookie. I bought my first condo as a clueless 28-year-old I assumed the HOD covered water and electricity. They didn’t, so I ate ramen and drank water for the summer.

To help Peanut77 — and others — from enduring another LA summer where she “found new areas on my body that I didn’t know were capable of sweating,” is there a site that helps figure out utility bills – by address?

So, if you find yourself asking the seller what he sets the temperature at in January and for the corresponding month’s heating bill, you’re not a total fruit loop.

And we just learned this morning that Peanut77 is in escrow. Congrats! I wonder if the utility bill was a negotiation factor?

Field Agent Files: the Chamber of Secrets

It takes a lot to freak out tattooed, motorcycle-riding — but sweet as apple pie — Redfin field agent Daren Carper. Most of the homes he visits are your typical freshly painted, ready-to-move in pads. But sometimes things get a little creepy. 

It’s sunset and Daren and his client are touring a 100-year-old mansion in a posh part of town. From their first steps on the creaky, semi-rotted front porch, it was obvious that the place hadn’t been updated or well-maintained for decades. Cue Daren …  

Inside we found original wood floors that were warped and buckled, and high-vaulted ceilings that made the creaky floors echo throughout the house. We explored the house and found several issues that seemed to come from neglect – the house felt like a mausoleum that hadn’t been touched since the 70s. That, combined with the fact that it was an old house, was already starting to make me feel a little creeped out. 

We started to explore the outside of the house hoping to find an exterior basement access that might have washer and dryer hookups, and also give us a chance to see what the wiring and plumbing looked like. We found a rotted access hatch on the side of the house, and went underneath the mansion to explore the unfinished basement. The ceilings were about five-and-a-half feet high, and spider webs threatened to strangle us wherever we went; if the house hadn’t been touched in 30 years, nobody had been in the basement for about 50. 

There was no light in the basement, so I was cowering behind my four-D-cell Mag-Lite trying to see what was down there. My client had has hand on my shoulder, and was just steps behind me. The image of one of those horror movies comes to mind where you are yelling “DON’T GO IN THERE!” at the screen, but the characters in the movie are too stupid to hear your advice – in our case the curiosity was just too much. 

My flashlight caught a shadow of something interesting in the back corner of the unfinished basement. Fighting our way through the fallen insulation and spider webs, we continued further underneath the house. My flashlight caught an out-of-place wall in the basement. As we got closer we realized that it was not only a wall, but a full room. Again, curiosity got the better of me, and with my hand shaking I reached to open the door. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was ready to swing my flashlight like Babe Ruth. 

We found a single folding chair with a bare-naked lightbulb swinging overhead — a 40-year-old abandoned torture chamber in the basement of a mansion in a nice neighborhood (picture the James Bond torture-chair scene in Casino Royale). I felt my client’s grip on my shoulder tighten, and I quickly swung the flashlight around to make sure nobody was rushing from the shadows with some ancient medieval weapon. As far as I could tell we were alone. My client leaned over and whispered “This is f*ing creepy!!! Let’s get the hell out of here!!!” and we bolted. Finally our curiosity was satisfied, and we were able to run from the house without looking back. 

What’s your creepiest, wackiest, wildest home-tour tale? Redfin’s field agents tour homes day in, day out, so we have plenty more to share if you’re too shy. Maybe next time we’ll tell you about a tour in Wonderland, minus the hookah.

The Donald, Elvis and a Stuffed Bear

The Donald bailed Ed McMahon out of foreclosure today. Maybe Trump plans to single-handedly fix the housing slump?

Ed’s home in Beverly Hills doesn’t seem to fit Donald’s gold-plated style, but a Redfin Forums poster pointed out a stunna in Northridge he should consider.

It’s supposed to be a replica of Graceland, but I’ve been there and I don’t remember a stuffed bear holding a tennis racket in the Jungle Room, just a lot of avocado green carpet … on the ceiling, too many ashtrays and furry furniture. But there are touches Trump might like such as dazzling gold furniture, a warrior to stand guard while he bathes, dolphins frolicking by the pool and even his very own Oval Office. 

And it’s a steal at $158/square foot, when other homes in Northridge sold for $259/square foot. Trump paid a little less per square foot for Ed’s digs – $656 vs. $677. 

Maybe an Elvis fan will snap up the faux Graceland on Saturday as it is the 31^st anniversary of Elvis’ death. 

Have you seen other properties that should be on Trump’s short-list? Send us your best candidates!

Crossing the Chasm

My friend Geordie is a high-end real estate junkie. He cruises hot neighborhoods for open houses, even when he travels. He goes to every luxury condo party, and even picks up a few units here and there. When I joined Redfin he was ecstatic. Now he’d have someone to talk shop with. So, every time I walk into his house I get peppered with questions … how’s the Fin (his pet name for Redfin)? Anyone buying really expensive houses with Redfin yet – where, who, how much, what was the commission refund?  

When we started this crazy venture to change the real estate industry we were so excited just to get an offer (we actually rang a bell for each close. I hear Amazon used to do the same thing, copycats!?), now we’re working on multimillion-dollar deals. We just closed three multimillion-dollar transactions in April, including one house worth more than $7 million!

“For a higher-priced home, Redfin provided outstanding value compared to what we would have paid a traditional broker for the same service,” said Redfin homebuyer Tina Dur (pictured with her adorable family).

This might sound like peanuts to some brokerages, but it’s an historic first for Redfin and shows how far we’ve come. We’re crossing the chasm from early adopter Seattle tech-geeks to new markets and customers. April’s three multimillion-dollar deals were in California and 33 percent of Redfin buyers work in high technology, a decrease from 48 percent last year.

We won’t turn this into an Oscars’ speech, but, Geordie, this one’s for you. We also couldn’t do it without the improved relationships with the agents listing high-end homes, and our more than 75 customers who have bought $1 million-plus homes via Redfin, who received an average of $26,265, tax free.

The moral (sorry for sounding like Aesop, but I just read The Alchemist and I’ve been looking for omens and morals everywhere) is that high-end homebuyers are just like you and me. We know what we want – all the information, to be respected and an honest value; all core Redfin values, which is why we think we’re seeing more people buying very nice houses. But at the end of the day, we still give customers the same rockstar service whether spending $300,000 or $3 million.

Now another local big shot company is copying our idea! Did you see that Microsoft is giving commission refunds to customers who buy via their search site? And we thought we were changing just the way real estate is done.

Bonus link: Looking for a design coder? The SEO Rapper knows his stuff – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0qMe7Z3EYg

Los Angeles Real Estate: Hot or Not?

On Monday, we looked at what makes a property hot in Boston, so we’re closing the week with a look at a market on the other coast: Los Angeles. The big question: will we see the same trends coast to coast?

We found there really are (hot) pockets of sunshine in the Los Angeles housing market, and this is not according to my trusty Magic 8-ball. We analyzed 2,364 real estate records for single-family listings in Los Angeles County, Calif. that entered the market between Oct. 1, 2007 and March 31, 2008, and sold.

We looked at the Los Angeles real estate market next because, well, you asked.

Here’s a rundown of the neighborhoods with the most listings that sold within seven days on the market; the numbers in parentheses calculate the hot properties as a percentage of the total houses that sold in those areas:

• Beverly Center, Miracle Mile: 12 (26%)
• Brentwood: 12 (27%)
• Los Angeles, Southwest: 10 (12%)
• Sunset Strip, Hollywood Hills West: 10 (11%)
• Westchester: 9 (17%)

For the areas where there were a significant number of hot properties, we compared the listings that sold in seven days or less with everything else that sold in those areas. Our goal was to develop a clear portrait of the hot property, so our buyers would know when they really had to hop to it. And here’s what we found:

• Beds and baths were the same for both types: there was no pattern in terms of bedrooms and bathrooms. Hot and “not” (not properties took more than eight days to sell) properties both had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The coasts agree!
• Hot properties are bigger, slightly: The median square footage for hot properties was only slightly larger (.2%) than not properties, but the median lot size was 3% larger. Clearly, the LA sprawl doesn’t mean buyers get more space. Boston homebuyers got 13% larger lots with pretty similar sized homes – 1,669 square feet in Boston vs. 1,735 square feet in LA.
• Hot properties are newer: the median year built (1948) for hot properties was four years later than for the nots. Bostonians bought slightly older homes, but maybe that’s because most east coast homes are older?
  Hot properties are expensive: it turns out that hot properties weren’t exactly priced to move. In fact, the median list price of hot properties ($1.1 million) was 16% higher. And the high price isn’t just because the houses are bigger: the median dollars per square foot was nearly 16% higher for hot properties ($633) as compared to the nots ($548). The median list price of Boston’s hot properties was $459,000 … you can get two for the price of one in Boston.

There wasn’t a huge difference in the days on market for the hot areas (43) and the entire Los Angeles market (45), but, on average, the hot properties sold in almost five days (Boston hot properties sold in about 4.5 days).

The bottom line is that hot properties are slightly bigger, newer and more expensive. There are distinct areas and house types where properties still sell fast, which continues to support our reason for doing this study in the first place — the real estate market isn’t really clinically depressed; it’s more of a split personality, with the good stuff selling fast, and the rest languishing.

Did you just buy a home in one of these neighborhoods? What was your experience?

Bonus link: The Wall Street Journal reports on the heartwarming side of the housing bust. [Warning: shameless Redfin plug] Read about a couple who escaped their 100-mile, LA-freeway commute.

What Would You Do With $10 Million?

Pay Green Bay Packer Brett Favre’s salary for the year – what I wouldn’t give to get him on the Seattle Seahawks’ payroll for Saturday’s showdown. Take a spin in the General Lee – admit it, you’ve practiced the smooth, window-entry move like Bo and Luke Duke. Spend a night (and a half) together with the Rolling Stones – maybe Mick will tell you just how he gets into those tight pants.

At Redfin, we decided the money was better spent on more important things. Actually, more than 1,000 more important things such as weddings, renovations, larger homes and new furniture for our customers.

By the end of 2007, we refunded more than $10 million in commissions to home buyers nationwide. Since the launch of the home-buying service in February 2006, we have helped more than 1,000 people buy a home, with an average refund of $10,106. Since September 2006, we also worked with nearly 300 home sellers saving them more than $3 million in commissions, for an average savings of more than $12,142.

Did we make the right choice? We sure think so. But we couldn’t have done it without you, our customers and best critics. So, thank you for your support and feedback.

The $10-million-refund milestone caps a busy year for Redfin. We expanded from San Francisco and Seattle to Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego and Washington, D.C. Redfin also was the first brokerage to offer online forums for consumers to communicate with one another about the home-buying and -selling process and about the quality of their service from Redfin.

We also launched three major initiatives:

• The Redfin Advantage: a one-year study showing that Redfin clients not only get a commission refund but also a negotiating advantage in excess of $4,000 over clients of traditional brokerages;
• The Real Estate Scientist: data-driven guidance for home buyers and sellers to get better results, based on Redfin and academic studies; and
• The Real Estate Consumer Bill of Rights: a set of reforms for ensuring that consumers are well-informed, supported by more than 25 real estate businesses.

Keep your eyes on Redfin in 2008. We have a lot of exciting things in the works.

Bonus link: The programmer dress code. Redfin’s dev team already is top-notch, but should we mandate beards, long hair and dressing like a slob? It seems to work for all these guys.

Redfin on the Today Show … tomorrow!

We’re going to be on the Today Show Friday morning!

Are we joining Al Roker for the weather (and housing) forecast? We’ve been sworn to secrecy, but tune in Friday morning around 7:40 a.m. (same time in each time zone) to find out.  

And it’s LIVE, so you know what that means … anything can happen. Unless, of course, they have a tape delay for those Janet Jackson moments.

Check back tomorrow morning to get the scoop and maybe even a first-hand recount of what goes on behind the scenes.

In case you don’t know where to watch the Today show in your city, find out here.

Five Dumbest Renovation Fads: Are You Guilty?

Just in time for home-improvement season, Money Magazine came up with a list of the five dumbest renovation fads. Anything that compares Paula Abdul to a “dim” home feature deserves a read. “The result [of no fixed lighting] was that as night fell, rooms became as dim as Paula Abdul at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting.” In case you missed it, Paula proves her “Straight Up” dimness during her last Seattle visit.

Adhere to the list unless you want your family and friends to compare your cooking arena to the Iron Chef’s Kitchen Stadium or your garage to a small Costco. Don’t get me wrong, I love the 30-minute battle to concoct a five-course meal with ingredients like lobster or liver (including dessert!) and I love Costco, but I wouldn’t want my home to resemble a big box … unless that means there will be food samples in every room.

Cliffs Notes of the renovation dos and don’ts:

1. The great room craze: How do you light such a space without it looking like a lobby in a Marriott?
2. The kitchen stadium: It’s crazy to think that a kitchen longer than 20 feet is easy to use – you’d need Rollerblades to get from one end to the other.
3. The garage that ate your home: The things that give your house character don’t work on something the size of a small Costco.
4. Porches in the wrong place: … can make the rooms inside feel like caves.
5. Built-in lighting: … the end result of such an installation is a pockmarked ceiling that looks like a meeting room at a convention center.

Are you guilty? We’d love to hear about your home-improvement flubs.

Here’s one our Seattle Sweet Digs blogger Marilyn found that failed the Titleist test.

Happy renovating!