Closer To Pittsburgh

There is a thing called a “cheesecakery”. I found the reference at this Pop City piece on the Pittsburgh Public Market.  Ex-Steeler Robin Cole has such a cheesecakery there.  If this post turns up mysteriously short, it will be because I’ve given up resisting the urge to go clean the place out.

Move, Inc. looks to be moving away from the NAR. The two are the principals behind realtor.com which is one of,  if not the, heavyweight in online real estate search.  But the joint venture between the two has been modified in the past few months to allow Move greater freedom and the first noticeable flex of their new muscle appeared yesterday.  Mortgage Match is a new website which will be paired with realtor.com to help potential buyers get their financing in place.  Adding a mortgage resource to a real estate site makes all the sense in the world.  Only a small fraction of real estate buyers don’t need financing of their purchase.  So the overall strategy is absolutely not a surprise.  How they’re tactically executing the strategy, however, is a stunner.

Unlike the heavily advertised Lending Tree model of taking enough information to try to match the buyer up with any of a number of lenders, Move’s Mortgage Match is actually a portal to a single lender, Cornerstone Mortgage.  I haven’t navigated the Mortgage Match site extensively but there is a review by Notorious R.O.B. here and he was impressed with the design and functionality.  He also raises some outstanding points about how many of the big brokers that dominate the NAR have lenders as part of their family of services.  In Pittsburgh, all of the major players have their own in-house lending arm.  And my impression of how the local big brokers retain that business is that they are incredibly effective.  In fact, I’ve seen awards at local Coldwell Banker offices reflecting that they are tops in the country among Coldwell Banker outfits at funneling deals to their mortgage originators.

As for Cornerstone, I’ve been doing closings for over a decade.  I’ve been involved in (by rough estimate) close to 10,000 deals.  I’ve never seen a Cornerstone Mortgage deal.  So I checked four of our local Recorder of Deeds offices (Allegheny, Beaver, Butler & Westmoreland).  I found a solitary mortgage with Cornerstone in Beaver County from 2002.  Otherwise?  Nada.  Does that mean that they’ll screw up a loan if they get one from Western PA? Not necessarily.  But not having experience in an area is cause for concern, particularly here with our complex patchwork of municipalities and their disparate tax collection schemes and varying transfer tax.  Having a slick website and up-to-the-minute rate quotes is great, but it isn’t a alpha-to-omega solution.

As for certainly riling some NAR members, well, I can’t imagine that this development is going to sit well with them.  How much they can push back though isn’t clear.  Too much of the buying activity now revolves around web or mobile search.  That means the NAR must have a technology partner and they are, at least in the short term (and, as far as I know, for the foreseeable long term), hitched to Move.  Despite the members unhappiness though, I’d be shocked if this put a major dent anytime soon in their loan production.  At worst, I’d expect buyers to be using Mortgage Match rate quotes for comparison and expecting the broker’s lender to match.

I think the most disturbing element of this is that Move seems to have done such a poor job in its execution of providing a mortgage element.  Having a portal isolated to one lender without a nationwide brand name to me doesn’t inspire confidence by buyers, creates potential for cataclysmic damage if Cornerstone regularly botches the loan process, further fuels tension with banks that have recognizable brand names (the NAR has historically campaigned against big banks trying to enter real estate brokerage) and aggravated big brokers with affiliated loan offices to boot.  After a day of thought, I think it’s not going to work well enough to be declared a success.  As for why, I raise two possibilities:

1.  Move is more of a technology provider lacking real estate & mortgage expertise that they got suckered by the sweet interactivity and algorithms that Cornerstone could provide.

2.  Move was constrained by the NAR in how it could pursue a mortgage strategy such that Mortgage Match is more for show, i.e. Zillow has mortgage resources so we have to at least appear that we do too.  Basically, Mortgage Match isn’t meant to actually, you know, succeed.

I could be wrong, of course.  Something else could blow this up.  Hell, maybe the thing will even actually work, serve customers with outstanding treatment and generate huge profits for Move and Cornerstone.  But if I’m right that it won’t, then my money is on No. 2 for the cause.

How smart Yinzers are depends on who you ask. Ask one of us and you’ll get an unscientific No. 1 of course.  As for the actual data, according to the Pittsburgh Business Times, we’re way down at 86 out of the top 200 metro areas.  Not horrible, but I think we can agree that we expect more from ourselves than barely above the median.  The Pitt Chronicle though has a more nuanced take that looks at how we stack up based on more defined age groups.  Basically, when it comes to younger demographics, we’re doing outstanding.

Phoenix Commotion isn’t a commotion per se (although it’s causing a bit of one) and it isn’t in Arizona. Most builders have something like “Homes” or “Construction” or “Contractor” in their name.  Dan Phillips’ company builds houses but you wouldn’t know that by the name.  Then again, he doesn’t build houses the way a typical builder does by going to the lumber yard, getting a few truckloads of joists, drywall, shingles, etc. and putting up one house after another that looks a lot like the house next door and across the street and so on and so on.  Instead, he uses apprentice labor (“anyone with a work ethic willing to swing a hammer”) and recycled, donated materials, each project is compelled to be unique.  Lots of pics at their Flckr page.

Civic Arena lives! At least for a bit although my money is still on the site being slated for demo.  In the meantime, it’s going through a historical review.  I acknowledge that there is definitely a historical element to the Arena.  It’s a unique design, particularly the roof.  It’s the site of some incredible moments in Pittsburgh history.  But ultimately, it is a structure and a site intended for a very specific type of utility (concerts, hockey, basketball, the circus) and between the Consol Arena, Palumbo and the Pete, keeping it as an empty hulk for aesthetic purposes is a waste of the land.  There are issues about whether the Arena could be repurposed or retrofitted, but if they change the fundamental structure or appearance, then it raises the corollary issue of whether it remains a historic structure.  Tough issues, but ultimately, I expect the Arena to be a memory.  A sweet memory to be sure though.

Other notes:

Dan Green from The Mortgage Reports boils down what is useful about the latest Case-Schiller report on home prices.

Here’s a resource for HUD’s Neighbor Next Door that is designed to give certain public servants (firefighters, teachers, etc.) first crack at foreclosed homes.

To pursue further entertainment investment, a new project called PET (Pittsburgh Entertainment Technology) will be unveiled in January.

Final item: I’ve been more than fortunate to correspond with and meet Pittsburgh’s Secret Agent L.  She does some very special things for our community here and her spirit has inspired others internationally.  We’re lucky to have her here and she’s been recognized by Yahoo! as one of the most inspiring persons of 2010.  Congratulations SAL!

Shorter updates via @AccessClosing.  Have a fantastic day Pittsburgh!