patrick.net

The domain outbid.com seems available. If it becomes popular, you could charge sellers to list, so that they have a side channel to get offers that their Realtors(tm) might conceal from them. If you let registered bidders post anonymously, and assure them of privacy, you might offer a "verified bidder" designation so that they can have greater credibility. FSBO sites might have something like that, but probably not aimed directly at keeping Realtors(tm) honest (ha ha). You'll know you're succeeding if you start seeing commercial news articles calling you the Devil and a Trump supporter.

P.S. Maybe good ad potential too, because people buying and selling houses need a lot of services (title insurance, legal representation, mortgage, movers) and tend to change their retail shopping habits.

Dan8267 says

The fundamental problem is that you are asking person A to make some effort when person A isn't going to receive a benefit from that effort.

I like your analysis, but I hope that losing bidders will be motivated by curiosity as to why their high bid lost. Maybe they won't be motivated. Can't tell until I try.

It also has the nice feature that reporters seem likely to write about this new site.

curious2 says

The domain outbid.com seems available. If it becomes popular, you could charge sellers to list, so that they have a side channel to get offers that their Realtors(tm) might conceal from them. If you let registered bidders post anonymously, and assure them of privacy, you might offer a "verified bidder" designation so that they can have greater credibility. FSBO sites might have something like that, but probably not aimed directly at keeping Realtors(tm) honest (ha ha). You'll know you're succeeding if you start seeing commercial news articles calling you the Devil and a Trump supporter.

Thanks for the suggestions! I check and sadly, outbid.com is taken:

Domain Name: OUTBID.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1311723_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Update Date: 2012-06-28T16:55:45Z
Creation Date: 1997-09-26T04:00:00Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2017-09-25T04:00:00Z

It would be nice to let people bid online before the sale, but I bet I would get accused of "practicing real estate without a license". I can't really see it being a problem after the sale, but who knows?

Ultimately becoming an FSBO site seems like a good outcome.

rando says

I check and sadly, outbid.com is taken:

Sorry - I had got a "Server not found" error and assumed incorrectly that it would be available. A domain squatter or failed business might have registered it. Betterbid.com seems to be in the same situation: no page, but it's registered. Still, with more top level domains, something like that should be available.

P.S. Maybe good ad potential too, because people buying and selling houses need a lot of services (title insurance, legal representation, mortgage, movers) and tend to change their retail shopping habits.

rando says

I like your analysis, but I hope that losing bidders will be motivated by curiosity as to why their high bid lost. Maybe they won't be motivated.

I think that's being overly optimistic about human nature. People are lazy, greedy, horny, and status conscious. The way to make money is to service one of these four desires.

If people were motivated by curiosity, then http://www.worldscienceu.com/ would be the most popular website in the world. It's ranked 483,097.

There are two basic ways to make money off of Internet services, whether you are talking about websites, web services, or apps. The first way is to provide a direct benefit that people are either willing to pay for or put up with ads to get. The second way to build a useful community that people come back to repeatedly and are willing to put up with ads or tracking.

It sounds like you are trying for the second approach. If that's the case, you have to deal with the chicken and egg problem everyone has to deal with. The value of your network is basically zero until you reach some critical mass, then it increases exponentially. The hard part is reaching that critical mass. The typical approaches to solving this problem is to leverage an existing network to grow a new one or to offer something that goes viral. The former approach requires having a valuable asset already. I don't think PatNet has sufficient users to do that. The later approach requires luck.

The fundamental problem is that you can't really organically grow a social network. Social networks must grow fast or die because people don't stick around at parties where there are only a few other people. How would you grow your network fast enough so that it can stay alive? I think that would be the most difficult problem to solve to get losingbids.com to work. Unfortunately, I don't have a solution, but it's the problem you should consider first.

Dan8267 says

How would you grow your network fast enough so that it can stay alive?

Given even a few users and catching even one realtor cheating the seller would make the site newsworthy. From there, it could take off.

The biggest problem is getting the first few users. I need to figure out some way to get in front of people who lost the bidding on a house.

rando says

I need to figure out some way to get in front of people who lost the bidding on a house.

"Legal Ways of Flyer Advertising"

"San Francisco allows the public to post signs on public property so long as the signs conform to municipal regulations. The city restricts the size of flyers or posters that can be posted on utility or traffic poles. It also limits the number of days the flyer can remain posted."

rando says

The biggest problem is getting the first few users. I need to figure out some way to get in front of people who lost the bidding on a house.

I think Twitter is the way to promote it. #Realtors #Bids #Bidding

I betcha several times a week somebody bitches about a Home bidding process.

Dan8267 says

People are lazy, greedy, horny, and status conscious

But also nurse a grudge and like revenge... and get PO'd if they think they were bamboozled, run amok, or led astray. There is HOPE for us Bipedal Savannah Apes in the struggle against Realtors. Losingbids.com could be the black monolith that starts the real estate revolution.

WaPoIsHitler Lipsovitch says

But also nurse a grudge and like revenge... and get PO'd if they think they were bamboozled, run amok, or led astray.

Probably many of the people going to open houses around here have been outbid and are being told to bid above asking. Well placed flyers with maybe a QR code and a detachable fringe of URL reminders should get their attention. Maybe detach a few of the fringe reminders in advance, to make the site seem already in demand.

Twitter hashtags would help too especially if the site becomes large enough to trend, but you need a spark to start a fire, and if 99.9% of properties aren't on the site yet, the tag won't trend.

rando says

Given even a few users and catching even one realtor cheating the seller would make the site newsworthy.

Unfortunately, newsworthy has little to do with news today. I think you need a hook to catch attention and relying on news outlets isn't going to work. I don't know what hook you can use, but it has to be something that has value to the people who would provide bids.

If I were envisioning this as a business rather than a one-person side project, I would think the business case would be to become a bid brokerage. I would provide a service to accept bids on properties and then give those bids, for free, to real estate agents along with the contact information of the bidder. Real estate brokers love sales leads. They make money off them.

And since you are submitting bids and bidders to them, you can follow up with tracking not only if there are any bid frauds, but what the bidding history on a property was. This could be very useful information that can be leverage for other things. At most people only find out what the winning bid is because that's the public sales price. How much more useful would it be to know what the entire bid history was. Was the winning bid a few thousand more than the second highest or a hundred thousand more. The bid history would show the true market value better rather than what the greatest fool paid. You can't be sure that the greatest fool is going to come around again.

I could see a business like that being profitable, but it's not a one-man operation and certainly not a small side project.

rando says

The biggest problem is getting the first few users.

Pretty much any site can get a few users to trickle in who stumble upon it and just sign up to check it out. That's not hard, but it's not a basis for success either. You really have to reach a critical mass of users to have any real success in any kind of social network, which essentially is what any community based website or content repository is.

Unfortunately, it's a lot easier for a company with existing leverage to market it. The playing ground is not even at all. A marketing company or major player like Google or Apple can easily feed traffic to a new social network, but the average Joe cannot. This is a problem that anyone trying to start a social network has to deal with.

Of course, there is the Ashley Madison model, which I think is also used by every startup dating site, which is to create tons of fake users and hope that attracts real users before everyone finds out it's all fakes and bots.

All excellent ideas, thanks!

I'm going to try to do this in responsive React and Redux as a learning project so at least I will have some new knowledge if it doesn't work. I could do it much faster in my own primitive php style, but it wouldn't look as nice and the effort would have been totally wasted if it never catches on. If I haven't made much progress in a week, I may give up on React.

Database will remain the same I have now, so all patrick.net users will automatically also be on losingbids.com!

Dan8267 says

Was the winning bid a few thousand more than the second highest or a hundred thousand more.

Lol, the winning bid was probably less than the max bid. That's the main point to the project.

rando says

Lol, the winning bid was probably less than the max bid. That's the main point to the project.

I don't think that's the most common scenario, but I think it would be valuable to know if the winning bid was a lot higher than the second. This is important to people for several reasons.

1. The winning bid may have been a fool's bid that way over market. Knowing this would be important to the bidder and other people who are trying to judge values based on comparables.
2. The winning bidder may have been told he was in a bidding war when he wasn't. He'd be pissed to find out he was duped and may have just cause to call the deal fraudulent and invalid.
3. Having a complete bid history would paint a far better picture of markets and bidders.

i see spammers trolls posting all kinds of fake bids.
I see sellers posting bids on nearby houses that are astronomical to try to drive up the bidding on their house.
I see buyers posting lowball bids on nearby houses trying to drive down prices for the nearby house they want
without some kind of authentic verification process it doesn't appear viable.

BlueSardine says

i see

All good points and problems Patrick would have to deal with. There will always be some assholes trying to scam and game the system. You'd have to build a fraud-proof system.

Patrick says

Anything with "losing" in the name is negative to begin with.

Bingo. Don't you think this site contains enough negativity already?

rando says

all patrick.net users will automatically also be on losingbids.com!

Good idea, ppl can print&post flyers where it's legal, and you might consider electronic copies of The Housing Trap to users whose flyer QR codes generate enough traffic to the new site.

"WikiBids"

"EstateLeaks"

"OpenHousing" (probably taken)

WaPoIsHitler Lipsovitch says

"WikiBids"

"EstateLeaks"

"OpenHousing" (probably taken)

Wow, wikibids.com and openhousing.com are taken.

estateleaks.com is available, but I think losingbids.com has better punch.

this is too difficult and troublesome to get it right.

forget it.

Patrick says

It would be the place where people list their losing bid on a house, to try to catch realtor fraud.

Realtors routinely block bids which don't give their own agency both sides of the commission. This would be a way to expose that practice. Sellers would be able to easily see the real bids without their realtor being in the way. And rejected buyers would get a little bit of power to get around the seller's agent, at least after the sale is done.

There is too much fraud and corruption in the residential real estate market. Exposing real estate fraud would be a great service.
How about......ExposeRealEstateFraud.com

Piggy's attempt at humor is just sad.

Strategist says

How about......ExposeRealEstateFraud.com

It's available, but it's very long. Though very clear too.

These are available:

bidclarity.com
visiblebid.com
offerhonesty.com

or bidsexposed.com which has sex in it!

The main thing is that it should be perfectly clear how to type it when I get it mentioned on Marketplace!

After mulling it over for an hour, I think perhaps ExposeRealEstateFraud.com is actually best.

It's perfectly clear on the radio, and it allows me to expand into exposing other kinds of real estate fraud, like underpricing, hiding listings, faking comps, rewriting MLS history, etc.

Dan made some excellent points that I agree with.

Maybe market it to the seller? convince them that making their home sale participate in your transparency system reduces likeliness of fraud and "mistakes". also, they have the option to reveal bids to participants (maybe in real time), which can be argued that it may help drive more bid competition (cite ebay to convince them - we have all gotten into a stupid bid war on it).

after the seller registers his home sale w/ you, you generate a unique url for him, which he gives to prospective buyers. I don't know how buyers normally submit a formal bid, but whatever it is, make it part of the submission process that they also record their bid in your web app. Maybe that means the sellers agent needs to told that it is his contractual duty to inform all bidders that a bid is invalid until they submit on your site. Maybe the agent also hands out unique buyer id tokens to go along w/ your unique url, of which you generate a list of them so they can print it and cross them off the list as they use them. or also make it easy for the sellers agent to send an invite to the buyer via their email. these "exclusive participator" aspects I feel would help reduce fake bids.

you might even be able to get the buyer to pay a small fee. you might also be able to use appropriately sized fees (for both buyers and sellers) as a fraud deterrent. however, fees, and making people pay you, is more difficult as a small untrusted web site, so it may need to wait.

I would choose a neutral domain name and headlines etc. many people are timid and dont like social friction, and so will feel uncomfortable "accusing" their realtors of fraud, making them avoid your system. not an issue for the bidders because they have no choice, but the sellers are the ones who need to INSIST that their sale uses your system , so you must think of them. make them brand it like "this home sale is a real-estate-transparency.com sale" or something like that makes people feel good and trusting. the realtors will fight you on this.

rando says

bidsexposed.com

BidsExposed.com or BidSexPosed.com. I'll take The Penis Mightier for $200.

I like to shop at http://www.PenisLand.net

Patrick says

It would be the place where people list their losing bid on a house, to try to catch realtor fraud.

Realtors routinely block bids which don't give their own agency both sides of the commission. This would be a way to expose that practice. Sellers would be able to easily see the real bids without their realtor being in the way. And rejected buyers would get a little bit of power to get around the seller's agent, at least after the sale is done.

But maybe the psychology is bad. Consider that:

* People don't necessarily want anyone to know how much they can bid on a house. It might attract realtors, jealous relatives, or other unwanted attention.

* Anything with "losing" in the name is negative to begin with.

* Maybe buyers just wants to move on after the sale is over and they lost, and sellers want to move on and take the money they did get.

Questions:

1. Is this worth the, say, one month of effort it would take to get it going? If no one uses i...

Why does it have to be a website? I'd set it up as a facebook page with a chatbot to accept bid information, as well as query existing databases and offer "comps". Simple. Done in 10 days. Immediate access to 2 billion FB users.

I was thinking about this. It is key to making this system work.
The question is how would realtors react to it being part of the realtor contract?
Also the realtor could show the house without telling the seller so the seller isn't even aware there are bidders.
Unless there was some way of tracking who is coming and going into the house, maybe a spycam uploading to the cloud immediately every movement induced picture it takes, not giving the realtor time to disable the fuckin thing?

c1561490 says

Maybe that means the sellers agent needs to told that it is his contractual duty to inform all bidders that a bid is invalid until they submit on your site.

What if the site actually works to catch a fraudulent realtor? What could the losing bidders do about it?

Quigley says

What if the site actually works to catch a fraudulent realtor? What could the losing bidders do about it?

The seller would have lost out too, and no doubt a lawsuit would follow.

CBOEtrader says

as well as query existing databases

Which databases and how to get access?

BlueSardine says

The question is how would realtors react to it being part of the realtor contract?

Also the realtor could show the house without telling the seller so the seller isn't even aware there are bidders.

I'm sure realtors would not like it at all, and would strongly advise the seller not to track bids, but not for the real reason: it takes away the realtor's ability to hide bids.

Even if I get the seller to make it part of the realtor contract, the realtor could still simply forget to mention this system to certain bidders and still "lose" or "forget" about those bids. So I think bidders must also have the ability to log their bids even if the realtor does not give them a ticket number or other ID. But that opens the system up to anyone entering any bid. In that case, they would probably have to include contact info for the seller to see.

Could any of this be construed as "practicing real estate without a license"? That's one way they could shut it down. And if I did it with a license, I'm sure I'd quickly lose that license for some bogus reason.

How will you get people to show up to the site?

Patrick, few things:

First, I like the idea, it's a good starting point despite some of the concerns you raised above about people being apprehensive to participate and share financial information.

Next, we should all be aware of the arguments that can be used to explain why the closing price may be less than previously rejected offer, which we sometimes hear from realtors if they are willing to talk:

- The accepted lower offer had more cash and the owner didn't want to worry about the buyer's financing approvals.
- The highest offer was accepted originally, but there was a termite/roofing/structural issue that was found in the inspection. Therefore the price was lowered to keep the buyer and make the sale.
- The seller wanted to sell to a family that they thought would take care of the house as it had sentimental value to the seller.
- The seller has no obligation to accept the higher offer.

I say the above because it's an additional element that makes things harder to prove that fraud was involved. The way to prove it is that you have to have the rejected buyer and the seller corroborate on the story (or price misalignment). Otherwise you have nothing. And connecting those two parties is no easy task given the circumstances.

If there's a potential buyer that showed an offer higher than the published closing price, that's the lead that needs to be investigated. And there lies the challenge for connecting those people to your new site.

Interesting problem and I'm thrilled that there are some capable brains here thinking about it.

Here is what's in our favor. The people thinking about this problem are unquestionably smarter and more capable than the realtors committing the fraud. That tells me that it's only a matter of time before a solution is figured out if the foot remains on the gas pedal.

FortWayne says

How will you get people to show up to the site?

Just this morning in the shower I had the idea that I could simply mail postcards to the address of houses for sale with registration codes.

This would be good advertising, and it would validate the seller's identity to some degree. Of course, by the time I find out that a house is for sale, it's too late for the seller to add to his contract with the realtor, but the seller could still make it known that he wants this kind of disclosure of bids.

BayArea says

The way to prove it is that you have to have the buyer with the rejected offer and the seller corroborate on the story. Otherwise you have nothing.

True, so that's another good reason to contact sellers.

CBOEtrader says

I'd set it up as a facebook page with a chatbot

I don't have a lot of faith that Facebook would fight to keep the chatbot going in the face of realtor pressure. Look how quickly they took down "blasphemous" material in Pakistan: https://patrick.net/1304431/2017-03-28-facebook-complying-with-pakistan-blasphemy-laws-3-bloggers-arrested

@"A Good Realtor" what do you think of this idea?

Why not simply get your own Real Estate license, and then create your own website specializing in Internet Only Auctions for Real Estate sales? There's already Ebay to do this with any type of crap you want to sell. Ebay Motors for specifically autos.

So be an American Capitalist and offer a website as service for what you see is a need /want/desire not currently being offered in the marketplace

@patrick

rando says

FortWayne says

How will you get people to show up to the site?

Just this morning in the shower I had the idea that I could simply mail postcards to the address of houses for sale with registration codes.

Postcards will be very expensive. You could try and advertise on web sites that buyers and sellers of homes frequent. You will end up with a lot of hate mail from realtors, but that would be a sign of success.