Doc, Thanks for launching real estate as a session topic at VRoom Boston 2009. I’d like to use this comment to get some ideas started in response to your question, sent to me privately, about consumer-centric real estate business models.

Based on my limited understanding of fourth party vs user-driven services, my response is that the “ideal real estate business, at least for buyers,” is not a business but a network of “fourth party” organizations, or home buyer clubs both public / non-profit and private / for profit. Think of an AARP or AAA model but with LOCAL home buyer clubs that aggregate “user-driven” services and savings opportunities by local housing market, from both local and national vendors.

After the meltdown of the housing market, mortgage requirements have tightened and home buyers once again have to save real money, up to 20% down for their first home or condo. That has contributed to the slowdown in the housing market. Home buyer clubs could expedite that time frame by reducing transaction costs and delivering savings from four or five segments of the marketplace:
1. Lenders,
2. Developers / sellers,
3. Brokers, and
4. Product and service vendors.
5. Optional: Government subsidies and incentives, local and national

Trends at a recent real estate technology conference in San Francisco lead me to believe that home buyer clubs and an MLS of buyers could emerge as new players in the housing marketplace. Some of us have talked about those ideas for years, drafted business plans, even experimented with local organizations, like the Mass. Homebuyers Club (1990-1995).

If you google “home buyers club,” you will see that there are already a variety of initiatives across the country. My goal would be to create a digital tool chest so that local organizations, public and private, can assemble their own home buyer clubs to enable real estate consumers to save billions of dollars annually. (In 1998, McKinsey & Co. first estimated that home buyers and sellers could save $30 billion annually by harnessing the money-saving power of the internet.)

Where should we start? Can we inventory best of breed new consumer centric businesses and VRM tools, and update this old business plan to co-author a real estate and VRM manifesto (or something else)?

HomeSearchID: Executive Summary Working draft, originally written 2000-2002

Two major paradigm shifts predicted in the original business plan are emerging and could become cornerstones for an "app store" of new VRM tools for consumers:

1.  Sellers will be able to identify and contact potential buyers as easily as buyers currently find listings, and

2.  Housing searches will access ANY existing or permitted dwelling unit, approximately 100 million properties, rather than “active” listings--about 1.3 million at any time.

The proposed business venture, HomeSearchID will give buyers and sellers an opportunity to interact directly in this new environment without real estate agents thereby minimizing fees and maximizing consumer savings. 

UPDATE FROM NAR CONVENTION:  Sunday, November 15, 2009

While "do-it-yourself" homebuyers and sellers may cheer at the pull quote above, most real estate agents will be threatened.  However as the past decade has proven, real estate agents won't disappear but their role will change as they continue to evolve from sales people to consultants.  As proposed a month ago, I am visiting hundreds of exhibitors at the NAR convention identifying businesses which already have VRM-like characteristics.  Special thanks to Tara Hunt, one of the featured speakers, for cohosting the TweetUp last night to expand the conversation about VRM and real estate.  You can follow the ongoing discussion by searching for #VRM and #REVRM on Twitter.  To be added to the REVRM TwitList, send your Twitter address to http://Twitter.com/RealEstateCafe.  Watch for video (NOW LIVE ON YOUTUBE!), slides, and Google Wave soon!

So, I was delighted to see the “Comeback of the Consumer Savings Value Proposition” at ConnectSF 2009, the leading real estate technology conference in August. There wasn't a panel by that name on the formal agenda, but the comeback was there in the “Start-up Alley,” “Launch Pad,” and “Connect Create.” Beyond FSBOs and alternative fees, I counted a half dozen ways new companies are helping real estate consumers save money:

1. SAVINGS AGGREGATORS
Examples:
http://www.CondoDealz.com
http://www.Closing.com
http://www.WorkforceResource.com

2. SOCIAL SAVINGS: A bold new frontier, consumers rewarded by sharing savings
Example:
http://www.MyFrontSteps.com

3. PARADIGM CHANGERS
Example:
http://www.NationalBLS.com (National Buyer Listing Service, need we say more?)

4. INFORMED DECISION-MAKING TOOLS
Examples:
http://www.AltosResearch.com
http://NeighborCity.com

5. FEE REDUCTIONS / SERVICE COMPANIES
Example:
http://www.Home-Account.com

6. FEE TRANSPARENCY
Examples:
http://www.Closing.com
Agent Scouting Report (if they ever publish commissions, could deliver billions in consumer savings!)

Whether those new entrants ever think of themselves as a group, “change agents” are transforming the industry, some though technology, others through the political process (go Bruce Hahn), others through new consumer groups (go Doug Miller), and still others by educating consumers directly about their rights (go Erle Rawlins).

I continue to believe we are more a loose affiliation of real estate consumer advocates with the ability to organize on an adhoc basis (see case study from 2001), than a single organization or an event waiting to happen. Whether we ever sing together as one chorus, individuals like Joel Stern have proven the power of one consistent, prophetic voice.

Would anyone else, regardless of whether they are passionate about a single issue or systemic change, be interested using a wiki to coauthor a reform agenda and / or catalogue consumer savings opportunities in real estate?  How about attending a monthly series of real estate round tables, or fireside chats, in Boston and online?  Here's an example of one hosted at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School in January 2009.  I am there again today, talking about using VRM (vendor relationship management) to deliver consumer savings through a national network of self-organizing local home buyer clubs.  You can follow VRoom Boston 2009 on Twitter using #VRM.

What does that mean to real estate consumers? Home buyers, who have been timing the housing market, will be able to make offers directly to sellers at reduced prices; sellers can offer their homes at reduced prices and net the same profit. The ability to buy and sell without paying the traditional, two-sided real estate commission could bring some stalled transactions together, as stated in the blog comment below. Think of it as a "commission-free" holiday for home buyers and sellers.

Many times homes will sit on the market and do not sell [because] the seller is held hostage by the commission amount factored into the price. The house might have sold, but that $50K or $100K commission is the 800 lb gorilla in the room. The seller can't budge and the buyer often can not stretch to come up with that amount for both sides to make a deal happen in these days of expensive and tight credit. (From comment #20 on recent Boston.com blog post.)

If you are a buyer, sign-up to received daily email updates of expired and canceled listings.

If you are a home seller, we can help in two ways. First, if you are interested in selling "for sale by owner," join one of FSBO seminars or visit our FSBO wiki. If you'd prefer to work with a listing agent, either traditional full fee or discount service, find out how our "Listing Agent Report Card" can help you select the most effective listing agent based on recent MLS statistics.

Here's what expired, canceled, and temporarily withdrawn listings have looked like across Massachusetts during June and July over the past 15 years, 1994 to 2008.

The Real Estate Cafe understands that our fee-for-service business model, which offers fees from $75 to $150 per hour, doesn't appeal to everyone; so we invite do-it-yourself home buyers to review our full Menu of Fees & Rebates to select the (1) hourly fee, (2) flat fee, or (3) performance-based compensation plan that best meets their needs. If you don't like any of plans, you can also propose your own -- about one-third of our recent clients have!

If eestee and other Boston.com readers review our menu of options, they may conclude that one of our 100% commission rebate options was better than the one negotiated with eestee's attorney.

Five years after our 100% rebate option was featured in a Wall Street Journal article on "Cutting the Commission", we're still looking for innovative ways to help DIY real estate consumers save money!

Let's start by asking President Obama's new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to (1) outlaw dual agency; (2) divorce the traditional (now obsolete), two-sided real estate commission; and (3) regulate blind bidding wars.  Your ideas and proposed regulatory reforms are invited!

Questions asked in this blog post

Will the prevalence of iPods, smartphones, and digital video recorders create a new generation of house hunters turned citizen journalists? Not if the decade-long, lemming-like rush continues to cause home buyers to view each other as competitors, is my guess.

But if the housing market begins to slide as real estate bubble watchers caution, buyers may look to each other for information about what is really happening in the marketplace rather than traditional real esate agents / listing agents who are obligated to get the highest price for sellers and continue to fan the flames of "irrational exuberance."

How will those peer-to-peer exchanges occur? Will those amatuer roving real estate reporters begin to post their own comments in writing, audio clips, or video clips to the web? Those are the kinds of questions I would like to explore in this discussion of "Moblogging in Real Estate."

Home buyers, are you already using smart phones to house hunt? If so, how have they enhanced your home buying experience? Have you ever posted a comment, photo, or video to a real estate related web site, like our "Best of 2006" real estate bubble map, to share your perspective with fellow real estate consumers?

Do you think that citizen journalism and real estate blogs, particularly bubble blogs like the Housing Bubble and Boston Bubble, helped expose or "pop" the real estate bubble in your local market?

If you are as excited about using the iPhone's new video capabilities as we are, would you like to our mobile real estate user group for a real estate round table or field trip to experiment with leading mobile real estate apps?  Here's one you can begin to use immediately, courtesy of The Real Estate Cafe!