Not into that whole tabbed browser thing? Well Zillow’s got your back! For everyone who struggles with multiple browser windows, tabs, and all manner of internet hocus-pocus while trying to view two pages at the same time, Zillow has a solution: Zip-2-Zillow. In conjunction with ZipRealty, Zillow has instituted this new utility which makes jumping between the two sites a breeze. Now, instead of having to arduously cut and paste addresses from one window to another (seriously, it’s a pain in the a**!), you can just click the link and instantly get Zillow information for whatever property you’re looking at. And now that they’ve done their good deed for the day, they can get back to their plot to take over the world!

or maybe they’ll just keep on providing free and easy home estimates with ever increasing accuracy… It’s really a toss up at this point

-Tony Floriani

Recently we’ve noticed a lot of activity in the online home auctioning market and we decided to find out more. It appears that due to growing inventories and high rates of foreclosure in some areas, sellers are finding it harder to gauge their homes’ value and are uncertain about what marketing strategies to pursue. As these people seek alternative methods to sell their homes, some are finding that the auction block can offer a quick exit from stressful or disappointing real estate transactions. It can also help speed the process if the homeowners find themselves in financial trouble with mortgages, or if they are forced to relocate on a moment’s notice.

The auction block holds promise for sellers because it is a relatively quick way to guarantee a sale at a time when more and more homes are languishing on the traditional real estate market. Unfortunately, the rapidity of this medium comes at a price. In addition to steep auction fees, which can sometimes amount to over 10% of a home’s total value (compared with the 5% or 6% typically charged by traditional selling agents), there is no certainty that you will get what you think your home is worth. By comparing Zillow estimates with auction results, we found that many sellers can expect the final bid to fall somewhere within Zillow’s ballpark figure for the time period. Unfortunately, there is a fairly strong possibility that you will sell in the lower range of your home’s value, or even drop below it, before having to pay the expensive auction fees. Here are a few examples:

This home sold for 10% above the Zestimate before auction fees.

This one sold for about 4% above the Zestimate.

This one sold for slightly below the Zestimate.

And this home sold for significantly less than the Zestimate at a 35% discount

In one other extremely expensive example, a 1.2 acre Californian property brought in a final bid of almost $5.2 million, but according to Zillow estimates, the property was worth more than $6 million at the time of the sale three years ago. Even taking into account the ballpark nature of Zillow estimates, this seems to be an enormous discount. Indeed, it seems that more of the homes we checked out lost money than gained money from their auctions, and losers lost badly while winners tended to stay roughly within the range of their home’s Zestimated value.

So if you’re considering an online auction for your home, bear in mind that you may stand to lose a significant portion of your home’s value in the process. Even professional online auctioneers readily admit that their services aren’t for everyone. They believe the best potential sellers are the ones who have realistic expectations for the minimum prices of their homes, and those who are financially stable (those who don’t owe more in debt than they could earn in the sale). I would personally say that if you aren’t in a rush to sell your home, this method probably is not for you, and if you do try it for any reason, be prepared to lower your expectations. If you want to learn more about the auctioning process, you can practice bidding on real estate at RealtyBid International.

-Tony Floriani and Sandy Leung

Here at Homethinking.com, we provide fast and easy access to information and reviews about Realtors, but once you’ve narrowed down your search, you still may have some questions. From a Marketwatch report, The Real Estate Blogger has put together a list of the most important things to ask your Realtor before you hire them. And if you’re not satisfied with the answers, not to worry. Homethinking has over a million other Realtors for you to check out!

- Tony Floriani

Making the move from a townhouse or condo into a single-family home is a dream shared by families across the country. Some families, however, are finding that the move isn’t quite what they had expected. A recent article from the Chicago Tribune told the stories of several young families considering making the switch.

In some cases, families realized that they weren’t happy with the costs or responsibilities of owning their own home single-family home. Yet still more surprising were the families who found that, despite their initial misgivings, they were able to afford homes which they had thought were beyond their reach.

It turns out that in some markets, purchasing a newly built home can have hidden benefits. Due to the real estate slowdown affecting so many areas, there have been substantial cutbacks in building projects, but builders are still stuck with their excess inventory. With this glut in the market, some builders are now willing to offer major incentives to potential buyers in order to rid themselves of their costly existing houses. Other firms, such as Internest, offer buyers a rebate on new building projects. That means that families who want to move into single-family homes, but thought they could never afford the switch may now be able to make their dreams a reality.

- Tony Floriani

The home building market has slowed down dramatically since builders have decided to stop feeding the glut that has formed. According to an article in CNN Money, there are currently 132,000 new homes on the market, a rise of 28% from last year, and this enormous surge in availability has caused builders to think twice before pursuing further construction projects.

Another practical upshot of this overabundance of new homes is its effect on the real estate market. With so many homes available, home buyers are no longer feeling pressured to quickly buy anything they can afford, or pay inflated prices for the houses that they are considering. Consequently, more than one in three housing markets has experienced declining prices, according to the National Association of Realtors. Further, Zip Realty, a brokerage, also published that anywhere between one fifth and one half of homes on the markets it operates in have been discounted. It appears that these rapid changes may be at least one of the factors contributing to rise of a buyer’s market in place of the seller’s market that so recently held sway.

-Tony Floriani

There are a lot of perks and niceties that people will pay a little extra for when looking for a new home. Some are looking for a view, while others will pay a premium for added privacy, while still others will pay a handsome sum to live in just the right neighborhood. But would you stretch that little bit extra to start living green?

According to an article in the New York Times, green living may be the wave of the future. Some builders even expect their new green buildings to hold their value better in coming years, as non-green buildings become obsolete and fall out of favor in the real estate market. It’s true that even now, many people who can afford to do so will choose to live in green buildings over their traditional counterparts, and this trend is expected to continue.

There are still some downsides to green buildings, however, that are keeping them from becoming a truly widespread phenomenon. For most, the most daunting obstacle to green living is the inflated initial cost. Green buildings tend to cost more to build, which means that living green will probably run you a little extra, despite major reductions in your future heating and electrical costs in the long term. Still, green living isn’t only for the rich. According to the U.S. Green Building Council, it is possible to build green buildings at costs which actually end up being lower than the costs of building similar traditional structures. This means that in the not too distant future, you could find yourself living comfortably in a green building without shelling out too much green from your wallet.

And if the trend toward organic food is any indication, the market may be willing to pay a premium for clean housing in the future too.

- Tony Floriani

An excellent article in the New York Sun yesterday highlighted some of the major factors contributing to the enormous crush for rental properties here in the city. While I won’t bore you by recounting the entire article, I did note one particularly striking statistic: the vacancy rate in New York is nearly 0% for rental housing. This almost minuscule vacancy rate combined with the projected 1 million new neighbors we’ll be greeting to the city over the next ten years has pushed rental rates up a staggering 25% in just the last five months alone!

Having just relocated to New York myself, I know first hand how true this is. Because of the low vacancy rate, rental properties are being snatched up almost as soon as they hit the market, creating a somewhat panicked atmosphere for the renter. I’ve seen listings for rentals being published one day with ads for an open house that very same evening. By the next day, the apartment is gone. The feverish pace of rental property sales here has gotten so bad that it has forced some, myself included, to make a snap decision about an apartment they’ve seen. Once you’ve visited an apartment, it’s either sign on the spot or leave it for dead, since by the time you’ve actually considered your options and made a decision, most of those options are no longer on the table.

Understandably the raw demand continues to support the stratospheric price appreciations in New York Real Estate. And who says we were in a housing bubble?

A curious article on Curbed this morning described a resident of Cape Town, South Africa, who is looking to ’swap’ homes with someone in New York City. For $675,000, he built and furnished an amazingly beautiful 2,300 sq foot two bedroom home in Cape Town. He is now offering to trade his home for a similarly priced home here in the city. However, he is hoping to save some money by not getting agents involved in the transaction.

Upon seeing this offer, the good people at Curbed decided to show him exactly what he was getting himself into. So off the top of their heads, they found a listing here in New York that matches his price. It’s listed as ‘a 5 room wreck’ that’s a ‘fantastic value’ with ‘great potential.’ Does anyone else catch the whiff of euphemisms in the air? In any case, words like great potential are not exactly what you want to hear after putting your palatial Cape Town home on the line, are they?

Although this budding real estate mogul may have taken a purist stance in the transaction, not wanting to involve agents, the reality is that he has effectively shot himself in the foot in terms of finding the best deal. By avoiding agents, he is restricting his choices to about one in six homes (the other five on the market, on average, are represented by sell-side agents). The other irony is that working with a buying agent would cost the Cape Towner nothing as his agent’s commission is taken out of the New York seller’s transaction price. Thus, by allowing an agent to handle the transaction, our friend from Cape Town would be exposed to a vastly larger pool of purchasable homes at no additional cost. On top of this, if he were to hire a respectable buying agent, he could benefit from extensive local knowledge that he does not have himself, in addition to (in most cases) years of buying experience. In places like New York City, finding a great agent that’s right for you can actually save you worlds of trouble while keeping you well abreast of all the fabulous wrecks out there. If you’re interested in finding an agent in New York we could even help you get started

The San Francisco Chronicle has a fascinating series of profiles of the bay area’s most productive real estate agents, who are all women: Olivia Hsu Decker, Malin Giddings, Diane Gilfether and Mary Gullixson.

The profiles include lucid tales of movie stars, French Chateaus and private jets to exclusive Golf and Ski resorts. And of course technology billionaire Larry Ellison’s $25m Japanese-inspired estate.

It seems our friends across the pond may need to take similar steps to those of California.

The BBC recently completed an 8-month investigative piece on the world of realtors in England, or estate agents as they are termed over there.

The story is a shocking journey through secret kick-backs, fraudulent mortgages and fake passports. And that’s to say nothing about the ruthless competition.

With housing values as they are, each and every listing represents a lucrative outcome for the agent representing it. With compensation almost purely commission-based, it means more and more people chase the dream. As the article indicates it can also produce a horrible situation of lies, fraud and untrustworthiness.

Go and read the piece, and be shocked.