Pike Porter

We have a new agent at Castle Porter Real Estate, growing the company roster a full 100% over 2009. Jennifer Giordano is a seasoned agent that comes from a larger agency in Vermont. She appreciates the emphasis Castle Porter Real Estate places on technology--as far as I'm aware, we're the only agency in Northwestern Vermont using Relay with Docusign for example--and is currently getting her ePro designation.

I'm looking forward to working with Jenny and making 2010 a great year for the company.

I and several hundred other people almost watched the 80 year old Champlain Bridge explode into lake Champlain this morning.

Just this past year the Champlain Bridge was added to the National Historic Registry as the first and great example of some type of bridge engineering; some type of engineering not destined to stand the test of time. It was a beautiful snowing morning and the sky and lake met seamlessly at an invisible horizon line. The bridge was also invisible from where I stood. Some of the news stations captured the explosion on film, but I think most spectators only heard it--one quick boom like a July 4th firework.

It was perhaps the most anti-climatic event of 2009, but, what with the cheerful crowd, one I'm happy to have attended.

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.