Anonymous wrote:What do you mean your agent wasn''t allowed to respond effectively to that question, anyway?

Anyway, intriguing. Let us know when you go into beta.

Thanks. we're in beta as of about 2 weeks ago. I don't think I'm allowed to say the site URL outright, but you can find it via my DCUM profile (and 2 buttons next to it if you take a closer look around).

Anonymous wrote:How are you planning to monetize this service? I assume this isn't a charitable effort.

At the end of the day, if I'm able to bring the right home and buyer together and save everyone time, money, and frustration, then I am happy knowing I've made a positive difference in people's lives. However, most people won't know what to do next. When they need help to close the deal, they'll be able to use my site and request bids from real estate professionals who will then pay a referral fee. It's a win-win-win. Buyers get the home they want, sellers get the buyer they're looking for, and real estate agents don't have to waste time driving anyone around.

Anonymous wrote:Why would buyers be interested in looking at homes that they can't tell where they are?

The exact address isn't displayed, a proximity circle on the map is. The seller can also choose to display their address in a listing but it's not a requirement.

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I also forgot to mention 2 other sites per the OP's original question: Urban Turf has some coming soon listings (http://dc.urbanturf.com/listings/), and if you google for "PreMLS," you'll find an agent-only pre-market listings FB page where your agent can try to help you find other pre-market deals that aren't on the MLS yet.

Anonymous wrote:
Interesting, although I'm skeptical it can work. Plus, I'm not really happy at your suggestion that it's a workaround the Fair Housing Act.

I agree it's not for everyone. I think the Fair Housing Act issue resonates with a lot of people like myself. I sold a nice house in a nice, family friendly neighborhood with good schools. When buyers asked about why my home was better than one they could get much further away, for much less, and much cheaper, my agent wasn't allowed to respond effectively.

Anonymous wrote:
if they are real sellers looking for real buyers, then its just another MLS. Unless your site is a "pay to play" site requiring paid membership in order to look at the listings?

The MLS does not allow sellers to search for buyers. My site does. I also don't believe in charging consumers to use the site. That would just create an additional barrier to entry that doesn't support the ultimate goal of bringing the right home and the right buyer together. I've been through the difficulties of buying and selling in the DC suburbs, and I built the solution that I wish it existed for me.

Anonymous wrote:

Steve wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there any other websites that have houses which Zillow does not? It is so annoying that there is nothing exclusive.

I'm working on building that exact thing right now - a place where buyers can find pre-market homes, and where sellers can find buyers.

As a seller, why would I want to do that? If I want to sell, why do t I want the widest possible audience of potential buyers to know about my property?

There are parts of the country that do t have MLS and everything is exclusive through agents. It's a mess.

I think it's very situational. If you already know what your house is worth and can sell it at that price without needing to deal with the decluttering, de-personalizing, and showings then this website works well for you.

On top of that, this makes selling very convenient. if you know you have to move in 6-12 months, you can search for buyers and have one lined up so you don't have to deal with the stress of selling + moving + (potentially) buying all at the same time.

One thing that bothered me very much about selling my house is that my agent wasn't able to upsell my community to buyers on all the good qualities like schools and community due to the Fair Housing Act (Steering). This site gives sellers an outlet to showcase their home in the best light possible without ever needing to reveal their address or give out emails and phone numbers.

There are some other sites that don't address the total solution: www.forsalebyowner.com, www.fizber.com, http://www.militarybyowner.com, Craigslist FSBO section http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/search/doc/reo
This website might not help sellers in San Francisco where you definitely want to put your home on the MLS and get all-cash offers over list price with bidding wars.

Anonymous wrote:Are there any other websites that have houses which Zillow does not? It is so annoying that there is nothing exclusive.

I'm working on building that exact thing right now - a place where buyers can find pre-market homes, and where sellers can find buyers.

I am in no way affiliated with any of these services. These are just some resources I've come across in my research. Good luck FSBOs!

USRealty.com - (Updated) $19 for 10 pics, $99 for premium listing (30 pics)

xflatfeemls.net - As little as $89 for 1mo, or $109 for 3mo. +$30 for 30 pics. Tons of options like Centralized Showing Service, Open House announcements, lock box

100dollarmls.com aka AltRealty - I believe this is the lead generation tool for Frankly

unitedbrokers.us - $95 min, $295 30 pics

homediscovery.org - $199 min, $359 for 30 pics

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You can essentially "DIY" buy a house and save the 2.5-3% commission in either a home price reduction or a cash rebate. But the simplest, most convenient way is to work with an agent that will rebate you anything over 1% commission. Usually there's about a $2,500 min though but in this area that's generally not a problem.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck.

I've used http://xflatfeemls.net with success.

But I recently found that http://usrealty.com does it for less and even lets you get on the MLS with 10 pics FOR FREE.

I posted about this the other week but it was flagged because I offered to give people free advice/tips outside of the forum.

Good luck!

Anonymous wrote:OP. why the emphasis on privacy.

I think that real estate will generally always require assistance/guidance from professionals. But from what I've experienced and what I've read here, us buyers and sellers want greater transparency and honesty. I think the best chance of getting that comes from buyers and sellers talking to one another. But that's when things could get weird. Like online dating weird. So to increase our chance for success, I want to keep privacy high to make people more comfortable about talking with strangers. Plus I really hate how companies turn everyone into a dollar sign. I want people to feel comfortable knowing that their personal info is their own to keep/manage/remove. The privacy/anonymity factor seems to have been great for DCUM.

Anonymous wrote:As a seller: I hated the decluttering process.

I hear you. I was lucky enough to have a neighbor that let me use his home to store a lot of things at his home while I staged/showed.

Anonymous wrote:OP is trying to develop a FSBO website, and you are playing into this by giving him all the help he needs I hope he gives all of you a cut o the money he makes.

I'm not trying to get rich. I just want to set thing right. Two of my guiding principles in doing this are:
1. Do not charge normal people (home owners and buyers) anything.
2. Privacy is key.

Anonymous wrote:OK, I'll bite.

Thanks for responding passionately. I've got the same kind of passion driving me to fix these kinds of things.

Anonymous wrote:

Lots of hates posted. Pease give us one solution

Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt. I was out last week for training and I'm still catching up on emails this week while presenting at meetings and also trying to keep my team moving forward.

I was a little surprised about the floorplan complaints, so I'm glad I posted my question. I didn't care so much about this when I searched for homes, but it sounds like something that needs addressing. I did some googling and I think this is a solution I can integrate into the site that I'm building:

Demo (see pdfs) http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/fac_engr/flr_plans.html
Github project: http://openfloorplan.org/

This is just one thing I found from a couple minutes of searching. I know whatever I implement will need to be easy to use.

Back to meetings now!

Thanks for the perspective! I've learned some things already.

Before the cynics (eventually win and) completely derail the discussion about things in real estate that need fixing, I will let you know that I have the programming skills to affect change and I plan on putting them into use: .NET C#, Java, PHP. SQL Server and Oracle DB. And in case you think I'm a dinosaur here are some buzzwords/frameworks to show you I am current in my awareness: Backbone, Angular, Node, Ruby, Postrgres, blablabla

If you already wrote a blog about the things you hated about your experience, I'm happy to read it to gain more insight.

I've been lurking on the forum a few months now so I know there will be snark and trolling, and I accept that.

I have solutions to some problems in my head but I don't want to jump to conclusions yet, so I thought I'd reach out to the smart and experienced DCUM crowd to get your input.

I'd like to hear about the things you hated about your experiences. I think we're smart enough to come up with ideas that can solve these problems even if you don't think it's fixable, so long as we put our heads together.

(Btw, I just registered today and it seems like I've taken over someone's account from 2013. I assume this is a bug in the registration system so I bet if you try to register for the DCUM admin's account it might just let you take over his account...)

I wish I had discovered DCUM sooner. It would have saved me so much time, money, and frustration in my sale and purchase.

When I sold, I hated that I got so many no-show/no-cancel appointment requests. When the people did come, I hated the feeling that there were strangers going through my house and I had no idea who they were and if there was even a chance for an offer or if they were just kicking tires.

When I bought, I hated the anxiety of not knowing what was out there and what might come. I knew exactly what I wanted and where I wanted to live, kind of like everyone here looking for a house in N. Arlington, but there was nothing I could really do short of knocking door-to-door.

I've started building a website to solve my own frustrations with real estate in hopes that people won't have to go through this same pain in the future. I don't want to miss other major problems I didn't experience, so I'm asking DCUM, "What you hate about the real estate process and what you would change?"




p.s. Thanks for posting "This page has gotten predictably annoying..." and suggesting "Be the change you want to see. Start some more interesting conversations if you don't like the those here currently...."