Altos Research Real Estate Insights - clients

Announcing AltosXplorer: Live access to the data

Mike Simonsen — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:53:33 -0700

Over the past couple of years, we've built our client base with realtors and investors, buyers and sellers, with appraisers and traders, with planners and researchers.

During that time, our products for those folks have taken the form of either detailed analytical reports or simply raw data. Either we do all the analytical work, or you do it.

More and more though, we found that there is a big group of people who need an easy way to solve more unique problems than we can possibly address in our pre-designed local reports, but these folks have neither the time nor the experience to sift through the mountains of real estate data on their own.

We realized we needed a product that lets our clients easily query the vast Altos Research database to get the specific answers they need, and use the output in any number of different ways. Thus AltosXplorer was born.

AltosXplorer for live access to the mega-huge Altos Research real-time real estate data.

AltosXplorer is for you if you've ever looked at our report products and said, "I don't need just one city, I need to be able to investigate any stat for any zip in the whole area (region, state, country)." Think about the investor who has opportunities that may come up anywhere in Florida, and wants to quickly compare two markets when a new deal arrives.

Or consider an appraiser who works all over Chicagoland. Any given day he needs to illustrate just a couple of key measures in a neighborhood to augment the rest of the data in his report.

For our Realtor clients, AltosXplorer is a lot of fun too. Previously, in order to use our AltosCharts you needed to formulate a long URL to get the right chart. With AltosXplorer, you build the chart you want with just a few clicks and then click, copy and paste! (See Kris Berg's first foray for the perfect example of how AltosXplorer was intended for our Pro clients.)

Can you tell we're giddy around here? I could go on and on but I'll wrap in a single (albeit multi-claused) sentence:

AltosXplorer is a rich internet application that enables you to do your own analysis, create your own trend AltosCharts, on our full database, and export the data to your own analysis in just a few clicks.

Learn more here. Try it out here.

Enjoy.

Inman Connect and RE Bar Camp in July

Mike Simonsen — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 05:58:30 -0700

A couple of events coming up at the end of July:

We'll be at the Inman Connect conference in San Francisco for the week of July 23-25. I'll be speaking in the blogging session on "Content That Hooks Readers" which, if you read this blog, you'll know I'm woefully under-qualified for. The good news is that the session is hosted by Kris Berg, and includes the inimitable Jeff Corbett, Benn Rosales, Ben Martin, and Sarah Hromack. Heavy hitters all. You're bound to learn something.

We've ponied up for a (gasp) sponsorship this time. Make sure you come by and help us pretend it's worth the investment.

The preceding Tuesday July 22 is the Real Estate BarCamp - conveniently also in San Francisco. Which, when shortened to REBarCamp it sounds like a concrete conference, I know, but I assure you it'll be more compelling. At a BarCamp the attendees get to create the conference on the fly - presenting content that you think others care about and interacting with those who know stuff you want to learn. I've been to a few bar-camps including the proto-FOO Camp last year and they're always a super enjoyable experience.

Scott and I thought we'd bring some Altos Research technology goodies to share with our partners and anyone else who wants to learn how to maximize all the Altos products. So if you're on your way to San Francisco for the Inman conference, stretch a day earlier and come for the BarCamp.

Friends of Altos on Realtor Mag's 30 under 30!

Mike Simonsen — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:25:16 -0700

REALTOR Magazine is out with their annual 30 Under 30 issue. I'm always a sucker for these types of articles highlighting the young and uncannily-good-looking - no matter the industry.

So I was browsing through this year's list of the preternaturally successful and - waitaminnit - I KNOW these guys! Check the Friends-of-Altos on the list:

Boston's Condo king Mike Dimella

East Bay AltosCharts hound Tyler Moxley

and the inimitable Jon Washburn of ActiveRain

(Even if I'm, ahem, a bit beyond the bounds for being included in the list, I'm ecstatic to see our friends on it. Look out, though, because next year Altos will be gunning for 25% reach.)

Congratulations on the attention, guys. It's well deserved.

Two Sites Digging the Data

Mike Simonsen — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:55:52 -0700

Two very cool announcements today from Friends of Altos - both are great examples of real estate data helping people make better decisions in this crazy housing market. I just love this kind of innovation.

Krunching.com

First up is Krunching.com: These guys built an investor-focused site with tons of data about properties for sale, investor metrics, property analysis. You can tell it was built by real estate investors answering their own property analysis questions. The site is super-fast and really pretty (in a web 2.0 sense.)

If you're an investor, Krunching is going to be a powerful tool for you. They're taking a freemium business model - they give away a bunch of great data for free and their power users sign up for paid services. They've built Altos local real estate data and analysis into their premium services, so if you don't buy from us, you can get our data in your Krunching subscriptions. My only complaint is that they've used an OFHEO regional chart on their investment summary page. The feds are telling us what happened to home prices in September. Thanks guys. (Hey Brian - you need an AltosChart on that page! Get with the program!) Krunching is only available in California right now, but it's a great start for a national product. Great job guys.

Homethinking Mortgage

Also launched today is a really cool mortgage market analysis product from longtime Altos partner Homethinking.com. I get questions every day from people trying to understand the scope of the mortgage crisis. The Homethinking guys have taken a huge pile of mortgage data and presented it in a super-clean, very powerful visual interface. Want to know how much exposure your town has to sub-prime loans? Homethinking will tell you. Want to know what percent of mortgage applicants are rejected? Check it out. Huge amounts of information in here. Again, thanks to the feds, this data is a year old. Still, it's better information than the world had access to yesterday. So kudos to Niki and team at Homethinking. Looks fantastic. And it comes in cool embeddable widgets!

On The Road With Altos

Mike Simonsen — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:01:15 -0700

We've been ramping up with a bunch of partners this spring, and we're hitting the road in support of their programs, so for all you Altos Research groupies out there, here's what the 2008 March-April World Tour looks like:

Next week you can find us in Atlanta at the RETechSouth gig hosted by Brad Nix and Matt Fagiolli. I'll be just one of a really solid panel of real estate technology brains sharing insights. If you're in the real estate technology world and located anywhere close to Atlanta, you'll be at this gig.

The following week, April 2, we're off to the Institute for Luxury Home Marking seminar in Miami. Love the folks at ILHM and we're going to be doing more with this group in the near future. Some great opportunities, especially if you're involved in the high-end housing market.

Then, mid-April we're back in So Cal for Dustin and Jim's second 4Realz Education seminar. The first one was a rousing success, with agents getting really powerful internet marketing insights. This time the session is in Orange County. This is a session for anyone ramping up their internet marketing presence. A must-see event.

As always, give us a buzz if you're coming to any of these events and let's get together.

Better Than Free

Mike Simonsen — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:32:09 -0800

I generally try not to stray too far from the real estate topic at hand on this blog, but I want to call your attention this morning to an article by Kevin Kelly (founding editor of Wired Magazine among other literary accomplishments). Kelly's the rare "futurist" who deserves the title.

This week he published Better Than Free. The article captures succinctly, why in a world of free and freely copyable information, Altos Research just had another record month in sales.

In fact, Kelly's concepts also capture why our most successful real estate agent clients, in a world of commoditizers and discounters, command a premium, even in this crazy market.

When everything is free on the interwebs, what is it that people really want to pay for? Kelly identifies 8 generatives: uncopyable values generated or cultivated from within. Here's a snippet, do yourself a favor and read the whole article.

Immediacy: Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it is released -- or even better, produced -- by its creators is a generative asset.

Personalization: A generic version of a concert recording may be free, but if you want a copy that has been tweaked to sound perfect in your particular living room -- as if it were preformed in your room -- you may be willing to pay a lot.

Interpretation: As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual, $10,000. [The listings? Free. The right neighborhood and home for you? ...]

It turns out while we weren't nearly so articulate about the process, these generatives have been the Altos DNA from day 1. How do we get you great information in real-time, and not just data, but analysis, personalized for you, and leverage-able into your business?

Anyway, to all our clients, readers, subscribers, partners: thanks for being with us. Rock on.

On Inman TV Today

Mike Simonsen — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 06:01:23 -0800

At the NAR conference in Las Vegas, I did an interview with Joel Burslem from Inman News. The video is up today on InmanTV.

Real Estate Video by - Real Estate Blogger

The video uses a sweet player from WellcomeMat.

John Keith, Boston Real Estate Broker

Mike Simonsen — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 07:50:14 -0800

John Keith

This post is written by our client John Keith a real estate broker in Boston, Massachusetts. We first met John when Scott sat next to him at the opening keynote of the Inman Connect conference in San Francisco this summer. At the time, we were just opening up our coverage in Boston and John jumped at the chance to work with us. We're glad he did.

John's blog is excellent. He's been very effective integrating the Altos market analytics information into his posts. So we asked him to write a post for us about how he uses the Altos Research services in his business, his blog, and with his clients.

John also generously included an endorsement, which I'm more than happy to include here. Note: I've done a tiny little bit of editing, and I added the images. Everythig else comes directly from John. Enjoy:

About John Keith

I am a Boston real estate agent. I have a blog devoted to Boston Real Estate, at bostonreb.com.

My blog has a main page with daily updates of news and information about the Boston real estate market. In addition, on this page, visitors can search through all the condos and single-family homes listed for sale in our local Multiple Listing Service. Also, visitors may click through to pages of information I have written that are of specific interest to buyers, sellers, investors, etc.

I signed-up as an Altos Research client several months ago. I thought it would be a great way to provide another much-needed service to my site's visitors. More importantly, I figured it would make me be seen as an "expert" on the Boston real estate market. Therefore, visitors would be more likely to inquire about using me as their real estate agent, increasing my business (and my revenue).

After being an Altos Research client for several months, I have seen very positive results and can say I'm very happy I have made the investment.

How I Leverage Altos Research in My Blog and Business
Now that I have access to them, I've tried a couple different ways of using the reports and graphs.

Right now, I have it set up so that there is one main graph on my blog's main page, for the city of Boston as a whole. It updates automatically, once each week's reports are finalized at Altos (every Monday evening).

I also have a link on my blog's main page directing visitors to another page where they can download any of the Altos weekly market reports (I subscribe to eleven Boston ZIP codes).

Banner for John Keith's blog BostonREB.com. Note the MLS Search, Market Reports, and New Developments dedicated pages. These are the three things that everyone wants to know about. The Market Reports, of course, come from Altos.

This past week, I added separate neighborhood-specific pages to my blog. [ed: here's The Fenway, for example.] These pages have blog entries devoted to each major Boston neighborhood. The idea is, visitors to my site will start on the main blog page, then click through to read more about specific neighborhoods.

I have an AltosChart on each of these neighborhood- specific pages, set up to show market data just for that neighborhood, by ZIP code. Probably some time in the near future, I'll be adding a link on these pages to each neighborhood's Altos market report (using each neighborhood's ZIP code).

I'm also about to set up an MLS search, preset by neighborhood, showing just listings in that specific neighborhood.

I expect this to have great results. The majority of visitors will continue to begin their visit on my main page, but then they will want to visit the page focused on just their neighborhood(s) of interest. By having the MLS search and AltosCharts on each neighborhood's page, I'm providing visitors with useful information.

How Strong the Call-To-Action?
It's an open question as to how much information and data to provide to everyone - whether or not to have the Altos Research reports available to everyone, or whether I should force visitors to contact me for access to the reports (a "call to action", it's called).

Certainly, by making people contact me, I'm creating a two-way relationship - it encourages communication, which, hopefully, would lead to new business.

However, I also believe in making as much information as possible available to as many people as possible.

Most people visit my website multiple times, over a period of days, weeks, and/or months prior to contacting me to be their real estate agent. They already know me quite well from my blog, before they make an inquiry. So, there may be little to lose by having the reports readily available to the casual visitor.

Each week, I upload all the updated reports (by neighborhood and city-wide) to my servers. I receive reports for eleven ZIP codes, which covers the majority of the "downtown Boston" market.

There are actually 29 ZIP codes in the city of Boston, and I've considered getting reports for each of them. I would like to be "complete", even though I don't handle real estate sales in the other neighborhoods. This would increase traffic to my site, which would increase my exposure to potential clients and make me seen as the expert in ALL of Boston.

Measuring My Return on Investment
I think the cost of the reports is easily justified. First, I enjoy reading the reports, myself. It presents data in ways I don't collect, myself. As well, it provides useful information to my existing clients. And, it provides useful information to potential clients.

Again, it makes me become known as an "expert" in Boston real estate - as the primary source for data and information on the Boston real estate market.

As of now, only a couple of other Boston real estate agents offer the Altos Research reports, which is fine by me, but I expect more agents to begin offering the reports to clients, which will increase competition. I'm glad I'm doing it, first.

South Beach vs. North Beach San Francisco

Mike Simonsen — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:04:55 -0800

Our friend Alex at theFrontSteps is hosting his occasional Battle Royale this week. He's comparing the North Beach vs. South Beach neighborhoods in San Francisco. Your job is to pick the winner. Where would you rather live, and why? As Alex points out, this debate really boils down to whether you're old school or new skool San Francisco.

I've never been a North Beach guy. Maybe it's the Italian food thing. On the other hand, when I moved to the city almost 10 years ago, there was essentially no such thing as a "neighborhood" in South Beach. So I lived in Potrero, which shares the 94107 zip code with South Beach. As I zip through the ball park area these days, I'm blown away by the changes. It's all so new that it feels a little soul-less. That's such a surprise in San Francisco. I have a feeling though, maybe if I were migrating today, I'd wind up there. I'm clearly not old-school San Francisco.

Anyway, check out the Battle and let Alex know your thoughts.

Bonus: Altos client Mark Choey blogs all about the new development condos in the South Beach area.

Some mentions in the Seattle PI

Mike Simonsen — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:09:43 -0700

Here's a couple of Altos Research mentions in the Seattle Post Intelligencer last week.

Altos client and blogger Sandy Kaduce is a contributor to the paper's blog site, wrote last week about the changing nature of the market.

On Friday, writer Aubrey Cohen called to get our take on the Seattle housing market numbers. The numbers that come out of the Northwest MLS are just starting to show year over year declines. (If you're an Altos watcher, you've seen this coming for a long time now of course.) Aubrey notes that the mix of property types being sold have an impact on the over all "median price" of a market. He uses one of my favorite qutoes to describe the 2007 (where the pain is starting low).

And the recent problems in the subprime mortgage market, which serves people with poor credit, have a disproportionate effect on cheaper homes, meaning those that do sell are more likely to be at the higher end of the market, buoying the median price, said Michael Simonsen, chief executive of Altos Research in Mountain View, Calif.

"You don't buy a $1 million waterfront property on a subprime mortgage," he said.

A Tour of Altos Research for Real Estate Pros

Mike Simonsen — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:00:33 -0700

We recently put together a tour of our product offering for real estate pros. It's yet not as polished as we'd like it, but I thought I'd drop it in here to get some feedback from our regular readers.

If you're a realtor and wonder what the heck Altos does for a living, check out this slidecast. [The presentation is really targeted for real estate professionals. It doesn't contain a lot of details on the market analytics, rather focuses on how our clients use the system in their marketing.] At some point we'll integrate it into our main site for all to see.

Super Cool Bay Area Real Estate Market Mashup

Mike Simonsen — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 08:50:56 -0700

Client, friend, and indefatigable blogger Kevin Boer has a really slick map mashup of our AltosCharts housing price charts for the Bay Area, using our price quartile data. Kevin uses Zeesource and the result is prettier than our own map mashup (though ours covers all our markets and has a zoom-in-to-the-zip-codes feature.)

AltosCharts map mashup by Kevin Boer at 3OceansRealEstate.com

Our AltosCharts service is up for the Most Innovative Technology award at the Inman Connect conference this week. It's partners like Kevin that really illustrate the power of using market analytics to inform. We're proud to count him as a client. I'm not sure how the winners are selected for these awards, but maybe fans of Kevin's work will stuff the ballot box for us.

And while I'm patting myself on the back, here are a couple of other Altos clients that use AltosCharts really well to bring value to their readers, and boost their own marketing return:

The Harper Team in the East Bay

Pat Kapowich in Sunnyvale

SeattleHome.com

(BTW - I don't mean to exclude any other clients and your sites. There are too many to mention. Feel free to add your site to the comments of this blog if you want to show off your AltosCharts work. I'll work up a post highlighting other sites soon.)

Why the Las Vegas Second Home Market Hasn't Tanked

Mike Simonsen — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:38:00 -0700

Las Vegas has long been the most maligned city when the housing bubblers do their maligning. The logic of complaints/fears goes something like this:

Housing demand of 2000-2005 was driven in large part by second home buyers
Off the charts levels of new construction keeps supply high
When the bubble bursts, those second home buyers are going to be the first to run.
Demand will crater. Prices will surely follow.

While no one is popping the champagne any time soon, a year into the housing market burst...erm...correction... and prices for second homes (mostly condos) in Las Vegas are still hanging tough.

This investigation was triggered over breakfast with Altos client Aaron Wheeler of Oakville Properties who mentioned his Las Vegas team is having a surprisingly strong year. (Oakville is headquartered in California, but does a good business matching people with the right properties in Las Vegas.)

Here's a chart that touches on what Aaron was talking about.

Price trends for condos in Las Vegas, NV in 2007. Each line is a Quartile, or 25% of the market. Some fluctuations at the high end. But we haven't observed the bottom dropping out of the market.

What gives? Why hasn't the Las Vegas housing market tanked yet*?

The answer is that Las Vegas real estate appears to be buoyed by those same second homes that the bubblistas were so afraid of.

When I was a kid, the second home market was a cabin on Lake Somethingorother in Northern Wisconsin. Somewhere in the '90s Las Vegas became the second home city of choice for vacation-bound Chicagoans. And Angelenos. And Hong Kongers.

So it turns out that this housing bubble is deflating in unexpected ways. And the Las Vegas housing market is an exaggerated version of the country's experience. Let's sum it up this way:

The economy is pulling real estate, not the other way around. Las Vegas is a global destination and the world's economy is BOOMING.

The pressure is building at the low end of the market. Mortgages are getting tougher and more expensive. But investment is strong, people are working. And the top-end globally is rolling. The whole country benefits from global economic strength. Vegas real estate maybe more so. Who knew?

*Not that this is a puff-piece article. There are indeed plenty of signs of fragility. Prices for single family homes in Las Vegas haven't held up nearly as well. Days On Market averages are climbing into discomfort zone. There are plenty of options for buyers. Caveat Emptor.

link: Las Vegas Real Estate Market free research and subscription

Inman Innovator Awards

Mike Simonsen — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 03:25:00 -0700

Inman News hosts its annual Real Estate Connect conference in early August in San Francisco this year. Today they announced the finalists for the Inman Innovator awards.

And guess what, Altos Research is a finalist in the Most Innovative Technology category for our AltosCharts market stats widgets. WooHoo!

It's nice to be recognized. So thanks to the folks at Inman for including us as finalists. Congrats also to our friends at 3Oceans, TransparentRE, Redfin Sweet Digs, Bloodhound, Wellcomemat, and Vflyer for their nominations too.

Incidentally, we've recently rolled out a number of cool features on the AltosCharts. Check these out:

AltosCharts Mobile! Get your local market stats live on your mobile phone browser.
Comparison Charts - now you can compare multiple markets, stats, timeframes and more in a single AltosChart! Here's an intentionally complex example.

These advanced features are available to all subscribers. Basic AltosCharts are free for your website. Play on!

Market Data Fun in Phoenix

Mike Simonsen — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:29:55 -0700

As Altos Research has been steadily growing our market coverage, we're making friends and clients in new parts of the country. Here's a quick mention for our Arizona readers to check out Phoenix Realtor Christoph Schweiger's new blog. He's jumped in to the blogosphere with both feet and, in the spirit of some of the blog-judging we've been up to lately, Chris' blog both looks great and reads well. Plus he has a complimentary post about us today, so he deserves all the glowing reviews and links we can give him. As an Altos Research client, Chris has all the market analysis goodies for the metro Phoenix market. Chris, welcome to the blogosphere and welcome aboard as an Altos client!