Pike Porter

So I emailed homethinking.com support with a simple question: "How do you get your sales data?" I received this response:

Many thanks for your email Pike.

Basically, we try to notice a Realtor is representing a property by monitoring public data, and then we check the county records to see if the house ended up selling. But that method can be prone to errors in some parts of the nation where the county record data may not be updated in a timely manner.

Also, you can change anything on your profile via a free a tool that lets you manage your listings activity and change those that are selling to sold.

Claim your profile here (it's free):
http://www.homethinking.com/realtorcheckprofile.action?realtorId=931934&claimType=basic&routing=profile

And then you'll be taken to an area where you can change your activity.

If there is anything I can do to help, just let me know and my apologies once again.

Best.
Niki

Niki Scevak - Founder
Homethinking LLC
_________________________________________
phone: (646) 257-4099 | fax: (646) 224-6950
post: PO Box 4668 #9550, New York NY 10163

I find it interesting that Niki apologizes (again?), though I don't make a complaint. Do they receive complaints often enough that they assume any email from an agent is a complaint? Is she aware I am an agent? I did not send my question through my business email. Perhaps she found me on active rain...

Hold on...wait a minute....just a second....

Yes Niki Scevak is on Active Rain. Or was; it doesn't seem she has used the site since 2007. I don't think this is how she may have discovered I am an agent. A simple google search for "Pike Porter" would have put the question to rest. I did find that several agents ask buyers and sellers to read reivews of them on homethinking.com. Some agents find it useful. I also found this Active Rain blog post from September 7th, 2006:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/7316/what-the-heck-were-they-homethinking-com-with-this-turkey-

So, in the process of getting my new agency updated in the bing.com local listings, I come across two reviews of my two largest competitors in Chittenden County, Lang and Hickok Boardman. "Interesting," think to myself suspiciously, "who reviews real estate agencies on yelp.com or judysbook.com?" Judysbook.com, who even heard of judysbook.com?

Well, Greg S. had and made it a point to review Lang Associates, now Lang Mclaurghy Spera, on August 20th, 2006.

It was the only review he ever wrote--ever--no restaurant reviews, book reviews, movie reviews--none of the reviews people ordinarily post for the world to see. But he went out of his way to write a review of his real estate agency. Huh.

I'm no less suspicious of the Coldwell Banker Hickok Boardman's review found on yelp.com Sybil C.'s review even included an upload of the company logo. Now that is one dedicated patron.

But who knows, perhaps the companies had nothing whatsoever to do with the posting of these reviews. There was a website out there at one point in time that tried to rate agents. The site accumulated some, very little, sales data and ranked agents by some formula. It so happened that most of the data was sales from Century 21, my former agency. I was it's top ranked agent. While I was pleased to see positive rating, I was a bit miffed that a website would rate anyone or anything, the same system could give an agent an equally poor rating for a similar random set of data.

Wait...Hold on...I wanna check something...Yes, the site is still online: homethinking.com. Unfortunatly, I'm no longer the top ranked agent...but I am still ranked as a Century 21 agent based on my performance 2 years ago. Good to see they are reviewing their data set frequently.

You can't believe everything you read online.

I'm very pleased to announce the establishment of Castle Porter Real Estate, a socially consious real estate company that strives to reduce costs to sellers, provide financial incentives to buyers, offer superior commissions to its agents, and provide charitable gifts to local not-for-profit organizations by embracing technological efficiency and by avoiding outdated marketing methods and unnecessary overhead. Castle Porter Real Estate will be the real estate agency Vermonters turn to when looking for the single most professional, cost effective, and socially responsible real estate agency in Vermont.

We are located at 52 Elmwood Avenue right in downtown Burlington. Stop in and say hi--or leave a note--its been a busy Spring. Of course you can also find us at Burlington's most awesomest, down-right kick-ass real estate web site this side of the great divide.

In coming weeks we should even have business cards to give away.

I took a sabbatical for much of 2008 to pursue some art hobbies. The time was relaxing. As much as I love my job, it was a bit tough getting back into the swing of things. Since January 1st, I have one new listing and one pending contract, and three serious buyers, one who has put an offer on a home and still negotiating, another who is ready to make an offer today, and a third who just met with me and her loan officer to review the best way to make an offer on a condo. I'm glad to get back into active work mode so quickly but forgot how much time out of the day, showings, offers, inspections, etc can take out of a day.

During my sabbatical I did get my broker's lisence. I have also redone my website Burlington Vermont Homes and Condos and have another new site in the works that should be unvieled at the end of the month. We still deciding what the new site name will be.

I've reviewed the stats for Chittenden County and Burlington for 2008 and home prices were up about 3% over 2007. Home sales were down, but it is good to know that homes are keeping their value.

Happy new year. Make it a prosperouse one.

Pike

These last few months I've read some interesting research summaries regarding buyer psychology. One little tidbit: In a market like we now have with an abundance of inventory and thus choices for the buyer--a buyer's market--buyers are actually more likely to be dissatisfied with their purchase then buyers buying in a seller's market. Why? Because the wealth of options in a buyer's market creates a paralysis of choices. With so many options, it is harder to chose just one. The choice they make, when they finally do pick one, allows buyers to reflect on their purchase and say "we should have gone with..." "if only we had purchased...." A seller's market offer buyer's far fewer choices and thus far fewer reasons to second-guess thier decisions. Consequently, they are more content with thier decision. A second interesting tidbit of buyer discontent: While the common reasoning says buy the smallest, least expensive house in the most desirable neighborhood which will allow buyers to build more equity than purchasing the largest home, buyers are usually more satisfied later by buying the nicest home in less desirable neighborhoods. Why? Because a home is more than a business decision. Though we don't admit it, and may not consciously believe it, we do compare ourselves with our neighbors--Veblen's keeping up with the Jones theory. We are less content being the small fish than being the big fish. Huh.