Daniel Rothamel's simple yet, to-the-point video pretty well sums up what it takes to get your home sold in today's market. This video made the rounds a couple months ago, but since Kansas is often behind the rest of the country, I figure nows a good time to put it up. It's kind of entertaining too! Take a peek:

There may be some who feel that this is a bit condescending to home sellers. Not sure why......it really does boil down to money. From the perspective of a real estate auctioneer, everything boils down to money - or at least who's got the highest bid when the gavel falls. But, sellers who overprice their property at the outset risk sabotaging their own desire to accomplish their two most critical goals:

1. Sell for the highest price possible.
2. Sell as fast as possible.

By setting a high initial asking price, you may think you'll end up with more in your pocket, but the truth is, you'll end up with the short end of the stick, and you may not be moving anytime soon.

From Daniel Rothamel at Real Estate Zebra

In light of all the hullabaloo surrounding eBay right now, and the fiery opinions from both buyers and sellers of personal property items, one can't help but wonder what changes will come to the real estate category. 

This Wired magazine article, along with the series of posts from Saul Hansell on the NY Times Bits blog really demonstrate the conflict that has been long brewing over direction of the online auction site.   Changes undoubtedly will come, and it appears that major site/operational changes are already in the works. 

I've long been of the opinion that eBay Real Estate wasn't much more than an afterthought:

It was probably a little more involved than that, but I've wondered for three years why eBay doesn't take the bull by the horns and make heavy inroads into the real estate arena.  As an auctioneer, I've been pleased with the effectiveness of many of my eBay real estate efforts.  Though the real estate industry is all fired up about auctions right now, eBay could have easily owned that market long before the downturn in the market which has prompted traditional real estate brokers to add "and Auction" to their company name.

Only this last week did the National Auctioneers Association finally launch what they are calling the "Real Estate Auction MLS".  This has been discussed for over a year, so it's obvious eBay isn't interested in being a major player in the next generation of real estate marketing options.  The Trulia's and Zillow's of the world don't have to worry about eBay exerting any clout or capital trying to usurp the success they're experiencing in the Web 2.0 era.

Funny thing is, at eBay Live '06 in Las Vegas, I happened to talk to John Donahoe,  head of eBay's marketplace division, about the Real Estate category and what changes I thought should be made.  He seemed receptive and encouraged me to email him through one of the VP's for more correspondence.  My emails weren't replied to, so I don't know if he ever received them.  Regardless, a lot has happened in a year and half and I'm not sure if eBay is in a position to own that market anymore.

In our company, we're still marketing real estate on eBay, but even within the industry it's viewed as more of a novelty than anything.   I just hope that while they're lowering fees for everything else, they lower their real estate fees as well.  Most sellers just don't want to put up the excessively high insertion fees to get their property listed. 

$150 for 30 days and $300 for 90 days is way too pricey!  If eBay is serious about offering a real estate category, they ought to seriously reevaluate their fee structure.  Contact me, eBay, if you'd like my summary of how you can own the market.  Though it's less than a year old, and badly in need of an update, my eBook - "Real" 21st Century Real Estate Marketing covers the techniques necessary to effectively market real property on eBay. 

Now that I think about it.  This blog has really lacked direction, as you could tell by all the fluff I've put up lately.  Maybe I'll just turn it into a rant about selling real estate on eBay.....hmmmm?  Perhaps that would be motivation to update the book?eb

Saul Hansell's blog found via Scot Wingo's eBay Strategies

While we we were killing time during the ice storms last week, our 5 year old and I built this cool Christmas tree out of Tinker Toys.

I almost like it better than a traditional tree!