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Posted: 7:30 am Tue, November 22, 2011 By Burl?Gilyard Tags: Bob Peltier, Daisy Kong, Edina Realty, Georg Gerstenfeld, Leonard MacKinnon, National Association of Realtors, Realtor.com, Trulia.com
Edina Realty President and CEO Bob Peltier. (File photo: Bill Klotz)
Listings will be removed from Trulia and Realtor.com
Edina Realty Home Services, the largest local residential real estate agency, is yanking its property listings from two national websites, one of which is affiliated with the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
Bob Peltier, president and chief executive officer of Edina-based Edina Realty, said the company has provided its listings for years to Realtor.com (the NAR site) and Trulia.com. But now, he said, both are asking real estate companies and agents to pay for ?enhanced listings? on their sites.
?They want to charge us to enhance the listing. It doesn?t seem right to me,? Peltier said.
San Francisco-based Trulia.com says Edina Realty is ?costing their agents future business opportunities.? So far, NAR says, other Realtors aren?t following Edina Realty?s lead.
Peltier claims that companies like Trulia are not really in the real estate business.
?They?re an advertising online company, and the only thing they have to advertise is our data,? Peltier said. ?We?re seeing many aggregators using our information to support their own business model. They?re not Realtors.?
He said that the information supplied to Trulia.com and Realtor.com from Edina Realty is accurate, but that those companies then work with other aggregators and syndicators. Peltier said local agents routinely field calls about out-of-date listings on national websites.
?Our agents get calls all the time about listings that they sold two months ago, six months ago, eight months ago,? said Peltier, who added that he has been weighing the decision for several months. ?I?ve talked to our agents about this. I had the analytics run. This is not a decision we came to lightly.?
Edina Realty announced the move at the end of business Friday. Asked for comment, Trulia spokeswoman Daisy Kong referred to a statement posted on the company?s blog on Friday:
?Edina [Realty] is costing their agents future business opportunities. By removing listings from Trulia, Edina will shut their agents off from millions of potential buyers searching Trulia each month. Edina agents will receive fewer leads from Trulia once their listings are removed.?
Kong also sent a statement from Georg Gerstenfeld, vice president of business services at Trulia: ?Once this change is made, homeowners selling their homes with Edina will not be able to reach 17 [million] potential U.S. buyers who search Trulia each month. Online exposure for a home is paramount in today?s real estate market, and Edina?s decision to remove their listings from Trulia only creates fewer opportunities for their agents to find buyers. While we respect Edina?s decision, we have already seen a strong reaction from concerned consumers and hope Edina?s management recognizes this is not the right move for their clients.?
Peltier said Edina Realty will stop supplying data to Trulia on Nov. 30. He said that individual agents can still choose to list their properties on Trulia. No date has been set for when the company will stop supplying information to Realtor.com, but it is expected to be soon.
?We?re working through that,? Peltier said.
Another large local realty company, Edina-based Coldwell Banker Burnet, has no plans to pull listings from third party websites.
?The objective is to get our seller?s home sold,? said Leonard MacKinnon, director of marketing for Coldwell Banker Burnet. The company has 1,800 sales agents in the region.
MacKinnon said the company?s philosophy has been to get as much exposure as possible for homes on the market.
?The sites that are considered to be the most powerful nationally are Trulia, Realtor.com, Zillow and Yahoo Real Estate. We?ve got a strategic relationship with those four on a national basis,? MacKinnon said. ?We?ve got a little more than a dozen websites that we feed our listing data to.?
MacKinnon said the Internet has significantly changed the business of selling homes.
?It changed our industry quite a bit,? MacKinnon said. ?It certainly gave the consumer access to a lot more information than they had in the old days.?
Peltier said that Realtor.com is a joint venture between the Chicago-based NAR and Move Inc. Campbell, Calif.-based Move Inc. operates a number of real estate-related websites.
Peltier acknowledged that agents are all members of NAR, but he isn?t concerned about ruffling any feathers.
?I don?t care, honestly, if it?s tricky or not,? Peltier said of the potential for political fallout.
A representative of NAR did not have much to say about Edina Realty?s decision.
?Any firm can choose to not have its listings displayed,? said Ralph Holmen, associate general counsel for NAR. ?I don?t think it?s a common thing,? he said about other real estate businesses opting out.
Peltier said Edina Realty has never had a contract with Trulia.com or Realtor.com. The company simply supplied its data for the websites to use.
?We get paid nothing, and we pay nothing,? Peltier said.
Peltier said Edina Realty has never provided data to Zillow.com.
Edina Realty is owned by Minneapolis-based HomeServices of America Inc., which is ultimately owned by Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Famed investor Warren Buffet is the chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway. Edina Realty was founded in 1955.
Peltier acknowledged that given the size of Edina Realty, the company is less reliant on other websites.
?We have the number one website in Minnesota. We know we get more hits and searches on our site than anybody else,? Peltier said of local real estate websites.
Peltier said Edina Realty has approximately 2,250 real estate agents.
Statistics from the Minnesota Department of Commerce showed more than 23,000 real estate brokers and sales professionals in January 2011. That tally includes both residential and commercial agents, but most are residential agents.
Peltier doesn?t buy the argument that Edina Realty?s agents will lose business over the decision.
?It?s easy to say we should be everywhere in marketing, but that?s never worked in the past,? Peltier said. ?Our site gives you everything.?
Peltier noted that several years ago, Edina Realty decided to drop print advertising as a company. Individual agents can still buy print ads, he said.
?We made that choice to benefit our sellers because they weren?t looking for homes in the paper,? Peltier said.
The company remains concerned about misuse of its data, he said.
?This isn?t really about Edina Realty as much as it is about the integrity of the data,? Peltier said. ?We?re trying to figure out what other aggregators are out there scraping our data. Unfortunately, there?s not many rules on the Internet.?
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Foreclosure investing is one of the central drivers in the U.S.real estate market these days. Based on the significant number of Las Vegas foreclosures (around 30,000 to date)and foreclosure deals, there is now a significant increase in interest in foreclosure investing in the city.
Presently, the average price per square foot of foreclosures in Las Vegas is $149. This is for properties with fine, quality furnishings mostly located in and around the city proper. For luxurious properties and estates, North Las Vegas offers homes and condominiums that are priced $330 per square foot.
?With these numbers, investor interest in foreclosure investments has been accelerating significantly as well.
Creative financing
For investors with limited funds, one innovative plan of action in foreclosure investing would be to initiate a joint venture among friends or family. These can be people who do not have the time or the inclination in real estate management.
You can do your own arrangement of splitting assets, profits, liabilities, etc. while taking the responsibility of managing the portfolio.
Location?
From experienced veterans, one rule of thumb in identifying the ideal neighborhood of your foreclosure houses is the presence (or absence) of Starbucks and the proximity to a freeway within five to ten minutes from the property.
Once a neighborhood had been spotted, there is also the need to assess the quality of the whole neighborhood itself. In real estate, you are not only investing in the house, you are also investing in the neighborhood. (It helps drive up the curb appeal and in the general appreciation of your property.)
Investment proper
Investments, like a good fight, always have risks. Taking a shot of Warren Buffet style (investing in 20th / 21st / and 22nd Century), one good investment time frame might be in periods where there are significant stresses in the marketplace.
There are, however, some significant positive indicators. One, Las Vegas home foreclosures are presently at their lows in affordability. Two, the rental market exhibits a robust picture. And three, there is ease in getting cash positive positions.
Time frames
Finally, most investors would ask how long the foreclosure investment should be held in order to generate enough ROI (return on investment). The only answer is to wait out the market.
Another tip would be to ensure that you buy the foreclosures that are cash positive. This is to compensate your mortgage costs. The mode of the operation is to let your investment to sit and appreciate and make you money, as most proper investments do.
Nations are doing it for themselves. In the absence of a global agreement, four of the seven countries bordering the Himalayas have agreed to work together to deal with the harmful effects that climate change is expected to bring to the region.
India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan met at the Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas in Thimphu, Bhutan, last weekend. There, they agreed to work together on issues including food and water security.
All four countries rely on melt water from Himalayan glaciers. Recent temperature, rainfall and snow projections suggest flow into the Indus river ? which supports the world's largest irrigation system ? will fall by 8 per cent by 2050. Other rivers in the region will see even greater declines, leaving millions vulnerable to drought (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1183188).
Upstream dams built with regional cooperation could help control the flow ? and generate electricity into the bargain, says Saleemul Huq of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London. "It's a significant step forward for the region."
Historically, Himalayan countries have rarely worked together, but regional cooperation could be the best way to tackle climate change ? especially as the upcoming UN climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, are not expected to produce a global treaty. To have a lasting impact, though, the group will need to include China, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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A sharp incision in his right eye may have contributed to the rapid demise of ?tzi the Iceman, the famous mummy who died in the Italian Alps more than 5,000 years ago.
Twenty years after two hikers stumbled upon the Iceman in a melting glacier, new analyses have revealed that a deep cut likely led to heavy bleeding in the man's eye. In the cold, high-altitude conditions where he was found, that kind of injury would have been tough to recover from.
The official opinion remains that an arrow in his left shoulder was the cause of death for ?tzi. But the new study raises the possibility ? for some, at least ? that he fell over after being shot by an arrow. And, at higher than 10,000 feet in elevation, his alpine fall may have made the situation much worse.
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"Maybe he fell down or maybe he had a fight up there, nobody knows," said Wolfgang Recheis, a physicist in the radiology department at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. "With this cut alone, at 3,250 meters, it would have been a deadly wound up there. Bleeding to death in the late afternoon when it was getting cold up there, this could be really dangerous."
Ever since his discovery in 1991, ?tzi has been measured, photographed, X-rayed, CT-scanned and endlessly speculated about. The Iceman Photoscan website allows anyone to scrutinize every inch of the body, which belonged to a 5-foot-3-inch, 110-pound, 45-year old man.
PHOTOS: Iceman Mummy 20 Years On: Mysteries Remain
Ten years ago, researchers found a flint arrowhead buried in ?tzi's left shoulder blade inside a 0.8-inch-wide hole. They concluded that the arrow pierced a major artery and killed him within minutes. At a conference in September, experts reaffirmed that assessment.
But in one of the latest studies, Recheis used the most advanced CT-scanning technology available to take a closer look at ?tzi's right eye. Earlier examinations had shown a crack in the skull in that spot. The new work revealed a deep incision in the same place.
Scans also revealed iron crystals around the right eye and forehead, which produce a bluish hue. And since the region's rocks are naturally low in iron, Recheis and colleagues suspect the iron is a sign of a hematoma, or massive bleeding outside of the blood vessels. A biopsy is needed for confirmation.
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Despite the officially stated opinion on ?tzi's cause of death, Recheis is not convinced that the arrow wound was deadly on its own.
"My South Tyrolean colleagues say the arrow most probably hit the sub-clavicular artery or other vital vessel and thus the Iceman died," Recheis said. "But there are doubts. It's justified that the arrow did not hit any vital vessels or nerves as far as we can say from the data we have."
"This could be the first thing," he added. "He was up there and shot by an arrow. And then he fell down, cut his eye and bled to death."
Albert Zink, head of the EURAC Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Bolzano, Italy, was surprised and perplexed to hear of these new claims. At a conference this fall, he said, a whole table-full of experts discussed the evidence and unanimously agreed that the arrow killed the Iceman.
The shoulder wound, he said, was clearly fresh and bleeding heavily when ?tzi died.
NEWS: The Ice Mummy: Little-Known Facts
"It is impossible that he walked around or that this was an old injury because this was a very severe injury," Zink said. "If you don't have the possibility to do surgery, you cannot survive from this for longer than 10 or 15 minutes."
The eye injury could have happened from a fall after ?tzi was shot or from a blow to the head by his attacker. But whatever the cause, Zink is sure that it was secondary to the arrow strike.
"It's true that there might be new evidence that there was a little crack in the skin, so maybe he was bleeding from skull trauma," he added. "But it doesn't change anything in the end."
According to some news reports, the new findings could support a theory that ?tzi was the victim of a mountaineering accident. Both Recheis and Zink agreed that this was unlikely. Based on his muscle strength and patterns of joint degeneration, the Iceman was a fit and experienced climber. And he was near an easy path when he died.
PRESCOTT, Ariz. ? Self-help author James Arthur Ray faced more than a judge at his sentencing last week for a sweat lodge ceremony that left three people dead. Members of the American Indian community sat through almost the entire trial in silent protest of Ray's use of a sacred tradition.
Ray is serving two years in prison after a lengthy trial that ended in a trio of negligent homicide convictions and that made little mention of Native culture and traditions. He has vowed not to hold another sweat lodge ceremony.
But whether Ray learned not to misappropriate cultures remains to be seen, said Ivan Lewis of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation.
"He desecrated our ceremony, he abused it," Lewis said Wednesday. "He used it in any way that he could just to get his money. He was told before not to do that, and he's paying for it now."
Sweat lodges are commonly used by American Indian tribes to cleanse the body and prepare for hunts, ceremonies and other events. They typically hold no more than a dozen people, compared with more than 50 people inside the one Ray led near Sedona in October 2009.
The ceremony involves stones heated up outside the lodge, brought inside and placed in a pit. The door is closed, and water is poured on the stones, producing heat aimed at releasing toxins in the body. In traditional ceremonies, the person who pours the water is said to have an innate sense about the conditions of others inside the sweat lodge, many times recognizing problems before they physically are presented.
Day after day, Lewis and his companion, Cheryl Joaquin, slipped into a central Arizona courtroom to listen to trial testimony. Prosecutors hardly mentioned a sweat lodge, instead referring to Ray's event as a "heat endurance challenge." Most of the participants had never been in one before.
The families of the victims ? Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y., James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee, and Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minn. ? asked Lewis and Joaquin to keep in mind their loved ones when they could not be in court. The couple wore bracelets bearing Brown's name, given to them by her parents. On the day Ray was sentenced, Joaquin's children handed a single red rose to the victims' families to promote healing.
Brown's mother, Virginia, expressed sorrow "that their sacred traditions were defiled in this event."
"We have experienced hundreds of years of generational transgressions against our way of life and the value of human life for the purpose of power and greed," Joaquin, of the Gila River Indian Community, wrote as Ray was being sentenced. "Today we pray and envision a time of unity for all mankind, with a humble understanding of love, peace and harmony."
Lewis was among a group who sued Ray following the ceremony, alleging that Ray violated the Indian Arts and Crafts Act by running the sweat lodge. A federal judge dismissed the civil complaint, saying the act applies to goods, not services.
Bill Bielecki, an attorney representing the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council on South Dakota's Pine Ridge reservation, said the trial would encourage non-Natives to focus on safety when running sweat lodge ceremonies.
"They're going to look at the facts," said Bielecki, who also was party to the lawsuit, "You don't use a large sweat lodge, you make sure people can leave and you don't coerce the occupants into staying beyond their limits or capabilities. If you do that, then you avoid gross negligence."
Ray touted his sweat lodge ceremony as "hellacious hot" and said he learned from a Native American shaman. He told participants shortly before they entered the structure that he would incorporate teachings from different cultures and religions, according to an audio recording played by prosecutors. Ray said a friend once told him: "no one has been in a sweat lodge until they've been in your lodge."
He charged more than $9,000 to participants of his five-day "Spiritual Warrior" event that culminated with the sweat lodge.
Three people died and 18 others were hospitalized, yet others emerged with no problems. The deaths and illnesses sparked outrage among American Indians, who drew distinctions between what Ray did and what would be considered a traditional American Indian sweat lodge.
Jonathan Ellerby, author of "Return to The Sacred: Ancient Pathways to Spiritual Awakening," said the trouble Ray encountered suggests a breakdown in either training, facilitation or the unskilled blending of materials and practices.
"Sweat lodges and fasting are ancient traditions that promote health and healing when done well," said Ellerby, a non-Native who also has run the ceremonies. "The trouble is that anything that can help, if misused or poorly delivered can hurt, even kill. This raises a lot of questions (about) qualifications, cultural appropriation and intent."
Arizona lawmaker Albert Hale introduced a bill shortly after the ceremony to sanction the use of American Indian ceremonies off tribal land for profit and without permission. But he pulled it after others raised concerns about government regulation of religious practices.
Hale, former president of the Navajo Nation, said Wednesday that the lessons from Ray's trial don't apply only to Ray.
"The lesson should also be to the people who want to participate," he said. "They have to take care and make certain the person advertising himself to be an expert in the area is indeed an expert."
Ray's supporters testified during the sentencing phase that his qualifications to lead physical activities mattered little to them because they trusted him to keep them safe.
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama challenged the U.S. Congress on Tuesday to vote next week to save an expiring payroll tax cut, a day after a high-profile effort to tackle huge U.S. deficits collapsed in acrimony.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll showing that Americans blamed Obama in part for the "super committee" failure underscored the challenges he faces to persuade voters he is the still the best steward of the economy.
Obama, who is seeking re-election in 2012, was in campaign mode when he traveled to New Hampshire -- a key voting state where his Republican challengers will hold one of the first primary votes of the 2012 election in January.
He caricatured Republicans as the "Grinch," a mean-spirited character in a popular children's book about Christmas, for failing to back his $447 billion jobs package and an extension of payroll tax cuts due to expire at the end of the year.
Investors are already fretting about the fate of the tax cuts, worried that Congress' failure to extend them could put a damper on fragile economic growth.
Obama flew to New Hampshire after members of a bipartisan congressional super committee announced that months of talks failed to produce a deal to cut $1.2 trillion from U.S. deficits.
An online Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Americans blamed a combination of Obama, Republican and Democratic lawmakers the most for the panel's failure. More than one-third of those surveyed said it lowered their opinion of Obama.
The president ramped up pressure on Republicans to back the tax cut extension.
"In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we are going to give them another chance," Obama said, referring to lawmakers in Congress and this week's U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
"Next week they are going to get to take a simple vote. If they vote no again, the typical family's taxes will go up $1,000 next year," Obama said in a campaign-style speech to a cheering crowd packed into a high school gymnasium.
He got a roar from the crowd when he urged them to tell lawmakers, "Don't be a Grinch."
Lawmakers initially hoped to include the tax break for workers and other expiring economy-boosting measures in any deal that would have emerged from the 12-member super committee.
A senior Democratic congressional aide said plans were being made to debate the payroll tax cut measure in the Senate in early December and possibly as soon as next week.
NEW HAMPSHIRE ON PURPOSE
The White House specifically chose New Hampshire for Obama's latest rebuke of Republicans, a state that has mostly seen Republican presidential hopefuls visiting as they try to woo voters before the January primary.
Republicans have not ruled out extending the tax cut and jobless benefits, but they are likely to insist on additional spending cuts to offset their $168 billion cost. That could dampen the stimulative effect of the tax cuts.
While the details of the legislative effort are still being worked on, Democrats could attempt to pay for the payroll tax cut extension by raising taxes on the wealthy. Republicans have blocked that idea in the past and likely would do so again.
In that event, the tax cut extension could come up again in an end-of-year, catch-all bill to fund many government programs through next September, the end of the current fiscal year.
"I think it will happen but not without a lot of drama. But I don't think that will have any effect on markets. If it doesn't happen, though, that could spook people and trigger a rally in bonds," said James Sarni, a money manager at Payden & Rygel in Los Angeles.
"It would just feed the fire by confirming that we are in real trouble economically."
Even though global stock markets dropped on Monday amid reports the super committee had collapsed without a deal, most markets have moved on to more near-term worries like the debt crisis in Europe. U.S. stocks were flat on Tuesday.
Analysts warn that economic growth could slow by up to 1.5 percentage points in 2012 if the 2 percent payroll tax cut and enhanced jobless benefits are allowed to lapse.
"If Congress doesn't want to extend some of these benefits, then it's going to ensure that the economy faces more hurdles," said Joel Naroff chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors.
"Add that to the uncertainty in Europe and you have a very disturbing outlook for the first half of next year."
Investors are also worried Congress might try to undo $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts over 10 years that will begin in 2013 as a result of the super committee washout.
Republicans are already scrambling to shield the military from $600 billion in cuts.
One Republican defense hawk, House of Representatives Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, announced his intention to undo the military cuts even before the deficit committee had admitted defeat on Monday.
Obama has vowed to veto such a move. His own defense secretary is lobbying hard to preserve the Pentagon's budget.
Credit-rating agencies, already dismayed by Washington's inability to tackle the country's fiscal woes, could downgrade U.S. debt if the cuts are rolled back.
(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Andy Sullivan, Lucia Mutikani and Patricia Zengerle in Washington and Steven C Johnson in New York; writing by Deborah Charles; Editing by Ross Colvin and Peter Cooney)
Foreclosure investing is one of the central drivers in the U.S.real estate market these days. Based on the significant number of Las Vegas foreclosures (around 30,000 to date) and foreclosure deals, there is now a significant increase in interest in foreclosure investing in the city.