Housing News
Realtor.com to Sponsor First 100 Agents that Signup for Dwellicious PRO
Here’s the Scoop
Realtor.com is sponsoring the first 100 agents that sign up for Dwellicious PRO for the first 3 months- simply use the promo code rcom.
For those who do not know what Dwellicious is, it’s a social bookmarking site for home searchers, not a search portal. PRO allows the agent to interact with consumers around homes they’ve bookmarked and shared, as well as providing the agent a branded profile page with specific contact details.
As is mentioned on the PRO site 84% of home seekers begin their search online, and Dwellicious brings together the sites they’re using to search, and places you the agent right in the middle to offer first hand knowledge of the community and neighborhoods you serve, and for the next 3 months you can try it yourself for free.
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Average age of houses on the rise, so is it now better or worse to buy new?
With aging housing in America, are first-time buyers better off buying new or existing homes? The average age of a home is rising, as is the price of new housing, so a shift could be upon us.
The average home age is higher than ever
(REALUOSO.COM) – In a survey from the Department of Housing and Urban Development American Housing Survey (AHS), the median age of homes in the United States was 35 years old. In Texas, homes are a bit younger with the median age between 19 – 29 years. The northeast has the oldest homes, with the median age between 50 – 61 years. In 1985, the median age of a home was only 23 years.
With more houses around 40 years old, the National Association of Realtors asserts that homeowners will have to undertake remodeling and renovation projects before selling unless the home is sold as-is, in which case the buyer will be responsible to update their new residence. Even homeowners who aren’t selling will need to consider remodeling for structural and aesthetic reasons.
Prices of new homes on the rise
Newer homes cost more than they used to. The price differential between new homes and older homes has increased from 10 percent traditionally to around 37 percent in 2014. This is due to rising construction costs, scarcity of lots, and a low inventory of new homes that doesn’t meet the demand.
Click here to continue reading this story…
Housing News
Are Realtors the real loser in the fight between Zillow Group and Move, Inc.?
The last year has been one of dramatic and rapid change in the real estate tech sector, but Realtors are vulnerable, and we’re worried.
Why Realtors are vulnerable to these rapid changes
(REALUOSO.COM) – Corporate warfare demands headlines in every industry, but in the real estate tech sector, a storm has been brewing for years, which in the last year has come to a head. Zillow Group and Move, Inc. (which is owned by News Corp. and operates ListHub, Realtor.com, TopProducer, and other brands) have been competing for a decade now, and the race has appeared to be an aggressive yet polite boxing match. Last year, the gloves came off, and now, they’ve drawn swords and appear to want blood.
Note: We’ll let you decide which company plays which role in the image above.
So how then, does any of this make Realtors the victims of this sword fight? Let’s get everyone up to speed, and then we’ll discuss.
1. Zillow poaches top talent, Move/NAR sues
It all started last year when the gloves came off – Move’s Chief Strategy Officer (who was also Realtor.com’s President), Errol Samuelson jumped ship and joined Zillow on the same day he phoned in his resignation without notice. He left under questionable circumstances, which has led to a lengthy legal battle (wherein Move and NAR have sued Zillow and Samuelson over allegations of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and misappropriation of trade secrets), with the most recent motion being for contempt, which a judge granted to Move/NAR after the mysterious “Samuelson Memo” surfaced.
Salt was added to the wound when Move awarded Samuelson’s job to Move veteran, Curt Beardsley, who days after Samuelson left, also defected to Zillow. This too led to a lawsuit, with allegations including breach of contract, violation of corporations code, illegal dumping of stocks, and Move has sought restitution. These charges are extremely serious, but demanded slightly less attention than the ongoing lawsuit against Samuelson.
2. Two major media brands emerge
Last fall, the News Corp. acquisition of Move, Inc. was given the green light by the feds, and this month, Zillow finalized their acquisition of Trulia.
…Click here to continue reading this story…
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Jim Gatos
January 8, 2009 at 10:21 am
Sponsoring for what? A year with enhanced listings? Two years? 3 months? I’m afraid I don’t get what’s being sponsored…
Benn Rosales
January 8, 2009 at 10:22 am
“Realtor.com is sponsoring the first 100 agents that sign up for Dwellicious PRO for the first 3 months- simply use the promo code rcom.”
Elaine Hanson
January 8, 2009 at 10:53 am
Are they affiliated companies? I’m not sure I’m understanding the bookmarking site idea, but will go check it out. Thanks!
Benn Rosales
January 8, 2009 at 11:05 am
Hi Elaine, great question.
Realtor.com along with just about all major real estate search portals are serving the option to bookmark their (consumer favorites) properties to Dwellicious, so it’s cooperative on the consumer side at the very least. So from wherever a consumer bookmarks, you’re touching the consumer at Dwellicious.
Eric Holmes
January 8, 2009 at 11:06 am
I’ve signed up as a real estate professional, looked at their help page, and I still can’t find the option to use the code muchless sign up as a Pro. Thanks for the info though. I’ll continue to try.
Benn Rosales
January 8, 2009 at 11:14 am
Hi Eric,
go here https://dwellicious.com/pro-plans
From what I see, you sign up normally and at the bottom it will ask you for a promo code. I just clicked on ‘launch pricing’
Greg Robertson
January 8, 2009 at 11:15 am
To take advantage of the offer go to
https://dwellicious.com/pro
Eric Holmes
January 8, 2009 at 11:35 am
Perfect. I’ve been directing my FB contacts to the site for the information and the promo.
Eric Holmes
January 8, 2009 at 11:35 am
By site I mean Agent Genius.
fred
January 8, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Just looks and sounds like another waste of money trying to find prospects.
Christian Nossum
January 13, 2009 at 2:58 am
Thanks Benn. I just signed up to try it out. Also, I get it, and I will try to explain Dwellicious for anyone who doesn’t get it.
Basically, Dwellicious is something that allows your buyers, for example, to bookmark (or add to their favorites) any listing that they like on any of the participating websites. So if you have a client that likes to use Redfin, but thankfully understands the limitations of using a Redfin agent, they can “bookmark” (save) the listings that they like to your dwellicious account (which allows them to not only save all of the listings that the see from all across the web, but also comment on them, and share their favorites with others – spouse, family, etc). So like most buyers out there, they are searching not only your website for MLS listed properties, but craigslist, zillow, redfin,, trulia, and probably other real estate company sites.
What Dwellicious does for you, as their agent, is allow you access to everything that your clients like and see from all over the web. You no longer have to compete with Redfin’s great website and analytics. You can “use” their site for your customers. It also allows you to have a conversation with your customers about the properties that they like.
I also see how this could be used for sellers. Either you or they could set up a list of properties that are good comps for their home that is for sale to keep tabs on their market time, price, and marketing tactics.
The way I see it is people want information, and they are going to go all over the web to find it, not just one spot. This tool allows them to do this, while also allowing you to keep track and converse about what they are seeing. Seems like a good idea to me. Let’s see how it actually works…
Greg Robertson
January 13, 2009 at 6:50 am
@Christian – great comment and thanks for checking Dwellicious Pro out! Another use of Dwellicious is for agents who want to keep track of their own listings on various real estate sites. Just bookmark your listings on Trulia, Realtor.com, remax.com, redfin.com, etc… Then if you ever make a price change you can monitor which sites are the fastest making the change or which sites don’t. It sort of becomes a listings syndication monitor.