Another fire broke out this morning near the 405 freeway in Bel Air, and it reminded me of the Big One in 1961 when 484 homes were lost. As a result of this fire, the City of Los Angeles was able to initiate a series of fire safety policies and several laws, including the outlawing of wood shake/shingle roofs.
My Dad sold roofing materials at the time, and his company gave him a copy of this film – and I used to take it to school during fire season:
A couple of other old videos to commemorate today’s anniversary. This was a compilation video I published on this day in 2011 (9/24/11):
This is a video filmed in March, 2013 as the frenzy really got rolling. I think Bill featured it first on Calculated Risk, and then got picked up by the national media which then generated almost 15,000 views.
The first house featured here was a regular sale of a long-time owner’s house that listed for $699,000. It closed for $775,000. The second house was a short-sale which listed for $659,000 after the sellers had paid $800,000 – and financed 93% – in 2005. It closed for $752,000:
September 24, 2017 is the 12th anniversary of this blog! For a little perspective on where we’ve been, here is my most-watched YouTube.
This house originally sold for $927,500 when new in 2005.
I sold it for $485,000 in April, 2009 which was the low point of the San Diego market, as judged by our Case-Shiller Index. This year there have been sales on the street in the mid-$800,000s!
It feels like change is in the air – just ask any agent who is paying attention. But most want to shrug it off, and pray they make enough money before the SHTF.
I applaud Notorious Rob for furthering the discussion – my comments are towards the end of his post:
The gist of it is this – some day a game changer will come along that has the potential to commoditize the industry where we won’t need 1.2 million realtors to conduct the business. The business will be dumbed down to just order-taking, and no realtors will be left to provide the expertise to make sure you don’t make a mistake.
It’s not that big of a deal in the travel industry. If you make a mistake with your vacation, you learn a lesson and do better next time. In the real estate business, one mistake can cost you big money, and/or stick you with the wrong house – or cost you the right one.
These days, I feel more like Captain Willard than Hunter S. Thompson:
We got into the future of realtors over the weekend.
It started with the crowdfunding effort to raise money to build a realtor-owned portal, and the goal is $1,100,000. But less than $200,000 has been donated so far, so it’s unlikely the effort will be successful.
It’s a good idea though!
I explained why here, and then kept it going in the comment section:
But talk about the future may make you wonder what will happen here.
What is the future of the bubbleinfo.com, and JtR?
While most of the house-selling industry is going to the big agent teams, I’m going to stick with the personal-consultant approach, and use this blog to help differentiate myself from the rest of the pack.
I’ll risk being seen as irrelevant, but I’ll take that chance and try to appeal to those who are curious for more data/insight about our local market.
It is astonishing how many visitors still come to the blog! Don’t people stop reading real estate websites once they buy or sell a house?
Yet the Google Analytics above show that we’re still getting almost 5,000 unique visitors per months with virtually no promotion at all. Even if most of those hits are the sexy internet bots, I’d be happy if we had 500 people!
Thank you for being here!
What’s Next for JtR and Bubbleinfo.com:
More Kayla – I’ve said it before, but I mean it this time.
Grow the Staff – Interviews began today to hire one more person. Not looking for the big-team, just need more help with the little things.
Blog Upgrades – Work is underway to add a home-search feature, and consolidate others. Hoping to tune up the mobile access too.
Blog Content – This paragraph below is included in every sale, and I think it gives permission for agents to be honest and provide the transparency that is wanted and needed – not sure how far I will push it though:
Videos – I am more enthusiastic about videos than ever, and have been converting to Facebook Live as an alternative. Not that many people watch the videos here, but I’ll keep them coming and hope to improve on them because they are the future. Every blog post is automatically uploaded to that Facebook account, so if that is a preferred way for you to receive your knowledge, then like/follow the page there and you will get everything you get here, and then some!
Documentary Film – Today is the deadline for Sundance, and Giorgio has been screening privately to industry insiders to get valuable feedback before submitting. We discussed last week about including some of my old foreclosure videos, so there is hope I won’t end up on the cutting room floor.
Stick around, there’s plenty more to come!
Tell your friends and family who are thinking of buying or selling to use this blog as a resource, and to employ Kayla and I to be their realtors! I’d appreciate it!
