Please indulge me with a quick leap back into national real estate.

Redfin, a company built upon rebating two-thirds of the commission it receives as a buyers’ agent back to the buyer, this weekend reported that in its first year of existence it’s clients paid less for their homes than clients of the area’s other brokerages.

Here’s the full post, which resulted in a Seattle Times article as well as posts on The Future of Real Estate Marketing and the Freakonomics blogs. In short, Redfin says its clients paid 99.329% of list price in the company’s 200-odd transactions while other brokerages’ clients paid more than the full list price on average.

A spokesman for the NWMLS, Seattle’s Multiple Listing Service, said it would be too time consuming to determine the accuracy of the numbers.

And so I throw the gauntlet to the Rain City folks, some of whom have far more computer ability than a lowly Realtor and his beagle. Are the numbers legit? If so, great. If not, the actual numbers ought to be revealed.

Easy for me to budget someone else’s time, I realize. But given that the NWMLS says sellers received 81% of list price on average, there’s a discrepancy that needs to be explained, especially with Redfin expanding their reach into other markets.

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This week’s Carnival of Real Estate has posted at Daniel Rothamel’s Real Estate Zebra. We didn’t enter … I’d like to blame Tobey, but the real culprit is a cough that has been bouncing up and back between the two young ones. Well, that and a dozen active listings with more on the way, one closing and another on the horizon, allegedly crooked lender willing.

Top seed in this week’s March Madness-inspired Carnival is Kris Berg’s Bloodhound post about the ABC’s of hiring an agent. Also in the top group was Peter Comitini’s take on proper pricing and Maureen Francis’ discussion of roping buyers by having the seller make the first offer.

The Consumer Oriented Carnival of Real Estate will post tomorrow. Naturally, we missed the posting deadline there as well. We’ll have no such excuse next week when we’re the hosts. Well, except for the fact I can’t very well enter when I’m doing the judging.

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Estrella Falls, a 100-acre regional mall slated for the northeast corner of McDowell Roads and the Pebblecreek Parkway, will be moving forward with an open air design according to this morning’s Arizona Republic.

The concept is not new to the Phoenix area but rather largely unused. Desert Ridge Marketplace in northeast Phoenix, Kierland Commons in Scottsdale and the Biltmore Fashion Square in central Phoenix’s Biltmore area (so named because of the proximity to the Arizona Biltmore Resort) are the lone current examples. Dillards and Harkins Theaters already have signed on for anchor spaces.

For Harkins, it will be its second multi-screen theater in the area - the Gateway Pavilions theater is on the northwest corner of 99th Avenue and McDowell in Avondale.

One of the commenters on the Republic’s article raised the obvious question — an outdoor mall in Phoenix? In the summer? Are you insane?

Probably no. Of course, my experience with Desert Ridge usually is limited to trips after 5 p.m. or so but the marketplace appears full year round. Even during the day, when the misters are running and helping drop the temperature from scorching to just hot.

One quick tangent … if you’re looking for the location of the mall in today’s article, you are out of luck. Somehow, the entire story is written without that little tidbit.

However, you can see the mall on this larger map of Goodyear’s construction projects.

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At the previously mentioned company awards luncheon on Friday, there was a panel of listing experts discussing where they get the bulk of their business. A question was asked about what role technology plays in their success. Almost to a person, the extent of the technology used was enhanced listings on Realtor.Com.

Virtually nothing about personal web sites. Absolutely nothing about blogging. In fact, there wasn’t a great deal about farming either electronically or otherwise.

The primary source? Sphere of influence.

It’s not an uncommon theme, that sphere of influence - friends, family, former work associates, past clients - will drive a real-estate business more than any other factor. One of the agents on the panel says he still keeps in touch with people who were in his kindergarten class.

I don’t even talk to anyone from my high school graduating class, much less elementary school. If I had known I someday would be in real estate maybe I would have behaved differently but I’ve always been someone who moves on when they move on.

And so when I looked for a path for my business, I chose the Internet. Maybe I’m doing this right and maybe not. Every other article seems to say either my posts are the right length or their too long or they need photographs or that they’re better photo free or that I’m not local enough or that no one reads specifically about Phoenix (or even about Westbrook Village for that matter.)

I found this California Association of Realtors survey through a convoluted path I can’t seem to recreate. I owe someone some links sometime.

In short, more and more people are using the Internet for part of their home search before ultimately contacting an agent for the purchase. Some (myself included) will argue that a buyer ought to have an agent before they start looking to help them identify potential pitfalls they may miss, but that’s a topic for another day.

What exactly are these buyers looking for? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?

Everyone has a theory. Some are right. Some are wrong. In the vacuum the majority of us operate, looking to find the answer that fuels books and blogs and seminars.

I’ll be the first to admit I spend too much time watching traffic numbers to my website. I’m trying to break the habit. Time’s better spent actually practicing real estate. The real numbers that matter are the number of transactions completed. The rest is fluff.

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Over the last few days I’ve started tinkering with my three main websites. I’m working to make some of the more popular features more user friendly … a simple button to search the MLS listings here, a “dream home finder” where prospective buyers can sign up for automated listings there.

On Arrowhead Ranch Living I’ve also added a specific condo page. It’s fairly rudimentary right now but I’ll be adding to the content over the next couple of days. We have had quite a few folks searching specifically for condos in Arrowhead Ranch - the question has been how to best provide the information these folks want.

Have some suggestions on what you’d like to see on either Dalton’s Arizona Homes, Arrowhead Ranch Living or Westbrook Village Real Estate? Or even feedback on this blog?
We’re listening …

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