To those of you who have read and continue to read, send me tips and thoughts and to the buyers and sellers whom I have met and worked with over the years, I offer a simple and humble thank you.

While the format of this site has changed many times, the intent has not – to provide clear and transparent analysis about the Charlottesville real estate market devoid of spin, reflecting my thoughts and opinions about the local real estate market, local politics affecting real estate and other such matters. Sometimes I write about my phones. Sometimes about technology that makes marketing real estate better for me and for my clients.

I know I’ve written about this before but I can’t find it – while Facebook and Twitter and Google+ and tumblr and posterous and and and and … are hugely ginormous behemoths, I don’t intend to build their real estate online as I do to build my own; my online hub and home remains this blog, and always will.

Make no mistake – the number one thing that writing RealCentralVA has done is forced me and allowed me the path to become a better real estate professional. I know more, I read more, I’m aware of more, I’m aware of more that I don’t know, I understand the context of real estate in the local, state and national economies … by reading, writing and practicing real estate every day, I’m better positioned and prepared to do what I love – represent my clients as I guide them through life-altering decisions.

These are a few stories of note; frankly, with over 3700 stories written since 4 January 2005, I briefly looked at the RealCentralVA archives and picked a few that interested me.

- RealCentralVA has outlasted a lot of others; most notably the Daily Progress’ links prior to 27 March 2008. Apparently blogging is dead. Again.

- The Meadowcreek Parkway continues to be a shining example of local governments’ collective inability to work together.

- The Charlottesville bubble blog has been one of the most welcome additions – they’ve provided rattling insight and opinions. One day I’ll find out who they are. For now, I’m happy to reflect on the interviews with them.

- I’m now riding my bicycle as often as possible to show houses.

- We launched a new real estate brokerage – Nest Realty – (Meet Nest) – that has changed the dynamic of how real estate brokerage is done in Central Virginia. (Have you seen our signs?) Or our community videos?

- One of my predictions has rung true. Real estate brokerage continues to shift.

- My blogging philosophy has not changed; I want to write, share my thoughts and opinions and not speak a party line about the real estate market (or anything for that matter)

- As I said in 2009, without this blog, I wouldn’t still be a Realtor.

- I’m using video a lot more now.

- Single agent dual agency, something I have long advocated as horribly bad and beneficial only to the real estate agents involved, while not outlawed in the Commonwealth of Virginia, is going to be much more difficult for Realtors to convince buyers and sellers to agree to. The now-mandated dual agency disclosures are simple and clear, starting with:

1. That following the commencement of dual standard agency, the licensee will be unable to advise either party as to the terms, offers or counteroffers; however, under the limited circumstances specified in subsection C, the licensee may have previously discussed such terms with one party prior to the commencement of dual standard agency;

All told, it’s been a fascinating seven years. I am entering my 10th year of being a real estate agent, and love what I do and love my clients. Every day brings new things to learn, new opportunities and new people with whom to work.

I won’t bore you any longer with this brief look at the history of this little site; if you have questions about the Charlottesville real estate market, please contact me anytime. My cell phone is 434-242-7140. I’m happy to talk (almost) anytime.

If you’re so inclined, please subscribe to updates, either by email or RSS. I sincerely appreciate your time, comments and reading.

PS -

1 – If you’re a consumer trying to understand the market, please feel free to contact me anytime; challenge me, question me – I’m always open to conversations about real estate.

2 – If you’re a real estate agent who wants to “blog for leads” – DON’T. Write for yourself and for understanding. You and your blog will be better for it. Consumers aren’t stupid; they know when you’re not being genuine or authentic.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Suggestions, critiques, commentary welcome.

Please find things that are broken and let me know.

I know the search for homes page is wonky.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

I installed another plugin a few weeks ago, but changed this morning to WP Touch at the suggestion of copyblogger. I like it. A lot. And hope you do, too.

There is some tweaking yet to be done, but this is an exponentially better mobile-reading experience.

Thanks to Safari’s user agent switcher, I can easily emulate what my Charlottesville real estate blog looks like on an iPhone:

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Isn’t this fun?

I think everything is finally clean. If you’re curious, this is a little bit of information about the attack and the long-term ramifications. (Hopefully, this is the last I’ll have to mention; thanks to sucuri, I found that Norton had flagged my site as malicious/blacklisted. If you own and operate a website/blog, I don’t wish this on you.)

Update 17 May 2010:

I am very sorry for the downtime over the past few days. My site was hacked.

My host, 6sync, has been awesome in helping and supporting me through this. I highly, highly recommend them. They are a tremendous ally.

I suspect that I was hacked via a vulnerability in bluehost, my previous host. I’m in the process of cleaning my server and doing various things that have nothing to do with real estate or my clients, and this absolutely sucks. If I could sue the hackers who did this for pain and suffering and mental anguish, I absolutely would.

This message will be deleted once Google sees that I’m running a clean site.

To the hacker(s): I hate you.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

I’ve been a Realtor for just over eight years, a real estate broker for nearly a month, and have been writing this blog for five years. Without the blog, I wouldn’t still be in business.

A couple million page views, several hundred thousand visitors, I finally had to switch to a more robust hosting solution, and most importantly, I’m still a successful husband, father and Realtor. 2009 was a pretty good year.

For my readers and clients (and potential clients) – please contact me anytime with questions about the Charlottesville regional real estate market, story suggestions, tips,

I worked hard on last year’s “blog-iversary” post where I looked back at four years of blogging about the Charlottesville real estate market, so I won’t do the same this year.

Milestones in 2009:

There were quite a few more, but a sampling …

- The brokerage – We opened Nest Realty Group this year, and by all accounts we have been successful. Increased market share, implemented new tools and always placed the clients first. 2010 looks to be exciting.

- I finally earned my Virginia Broker’s license.

- I’m giving up my fight to eliminate single-agent dual agency. More on this later, but suffice it to say that the traditional real estate establishment has too much of a vested interest in this legacy. I and we at Nest will just continue doing what we think is right for our clients; “Dual Agency is not in the client’s best interest — it’s only in the agent’s best interest“.

Other thoughts:

- Blogging is work. (but the good kind – fun and rewarding)

- I’ve added a lot of tools to the blog over the years, and gladly talk about them to whomever asks. Heck, five years ago the only “tools” I knew about were reading, writing and how to publish. Tools don’t make you good at what you do – in my case, representing clients.

- My archives are getting full.

- I’m trying to stick with my roots – writing about the Charlottesville real estate market, growth, politics, etc.. I stray frequently, but appreciate readers’ persistence and patience with my tangents.

- I’ve enjoyed a good relationship with the Charlottesville press, whom I respect for doing their best and embracing new ways to communicate to their readers. Seeing them all reach out to their respective readers and views via Twitter, Facebook … and yes, in real life … has been encouraging.

I’m grateful for my readers, clients and friends. Unsolicited kind words such as this make what I do worthwhile:

Still one of my favorites, from 2007:

… I started investigating local real estate blogs because, given that I am old and anxious to call myself a homeowner, I should approach the market as an old, yet informed, future Donald Trump, should I not? This is how I arrived at Real Central Virginia, a real estate blog by local Realtor Jim Duncan who, not coincidentally, is quoted to distraction in all manner of local media. It should be no surprise that the vast majority of local Charlottesville blogs are insanely boring or stupid or both. Ditto local real estate blogs (or all real estate blogs for that matter). Which is why this one stands out as being none of the above: It’s both good looking and good reading. It makes good use of TV clips from YouTube, links to articles on the topic (“The Upside of a Down Market” on RealBlogging.com), and personal observations.

I’m going to continue to be involved in Realtor and real estate stuff. I’ve questioned being involved, but will remain so long as they’ll have me (and even when they don’t I’ll still express my opinion). I serve on the Charlottesville Realtor Association Board of Directors, a committee or workgroup here or there, just finished my fairly fruitless term on the Virginia Association of Realtors’ Public Policy Group, will be beginning service on a VAR Group tasked with evaluating Virginia’s Agency laws (because, since the early ’90′s “much has changed in real estate with the advent of new technologies, business practices and consumer expectations.”) and will continue to serve on National Association of Realtors Groups and Committees whenever I am asked. I serve to learn and give back.

My advice to those who are fretting about not having strong social media presences? Don’t worry. Start writing; but write for yourself and your brand, not someone else’s. I’ve said since the beginning that my focus is on owning the content I create; what benefit do you get from building someone else’s site?

Find my Google profile, my card.ly profile, my Twitter feed,

Sincerely, thank you for reading and spending your time here. I greatly and humbly appreciate your time.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Email may be wonky, so if you need me and I’m not responding, contact me via one of the many ways at my Google profile – or I’ve heard the phone still works. 434-242-7140

Update 19 December 2009: We’re back up, and I’m pretty sure the site is faster. Hopefully much faster. Thanks to 6sync. I’m hoping to get a few things added, sorted and ready for 2010.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

(transcript after the break)

That being said … I have been writing and sharing at Posterous a fair amount lately. What is Posterous, you ask?

Not only is writing/posting at Posterous dead simple – you can post anything there – PDF, text, video, mp3, etc. etc. – and they take care of the rest, but it posts everywhere I want it to – Flickr, Twitter, Facebook …

Why have I been writing there recently?

- Writing there gives me the ability to post while I’m mobile (being a Realtor I’m mobile quite a lot),

- Sharing pictures taken with my Blackberry is simple, and the sharing can be ubiquitous.

- Real Estate industry stuff that doesn’t fit at or isn’t developed enough for AgentGenius (the national real estate magazine where I write) goes to Posterous.

- I can post about personal stuff occasionally (I went hiking at Humpback Rock the other day) and not feel like I am detracting from the focus of RealCentralVA

- The ability to share others’ writing is ridiculously simple.

- It can be a more varied place to share information. For example, over the past week I have noted the recent survey about "prestigious careers," Redfin’s philosophy about open data, having a beer Blue Mountain Brewery after hiking Humpback (their new Pilsner is fantastic) and livestreaming of the Charlottesville real estate market update with Barry Merchant.

I started RealCentralVA as a place to share information about the Charlottesville real estate market, and I intend for that focus to remain. There just happens to be more to life than real estate, and Posterous provides the best forum I have found for sharing.

* To the person who emailed me, I responded but your email got kicked back.

Hey Jim Duncan with Nest Realty and RealCentralVA.com here in Charlottesville. I got an e-mail from a reader the other day and he had a simple question for me. He was wanting to know a good local surveyor. He had some land he was looking at. So I’m going to respond to him with a few local surveyors I’ve used in the past.

It’s nice to be thought of as somebody who might know the answer to something. I might be better than Google. But he ended it with – he’s a long time reader, long time commenter – and I noticed he hadn’t been commenting recently and he said something at the end, he said: “I still check in on your blog sometimes, but not so much since you’ve shifted away from being a local real estate blog to more industry focused.”

And it really kind of hit me like a ton of bricks because I never intended for my blog to be anything other than a local real estate blog focusing on Charlottesville and surrounding areas, land use, politics, real estate, growth, water, etc., etc. market trends. So I don’t really want my blog to be a real estate industry blog. I think it kind of reflects what I’ve been doing in recent years, but I’ve got something that I’m trying out that I think is going to relieve some of the stress that I feel to post industry thoughts on www.realcentralva.com and you’ll be seeing and hearing about that in the next couple of weeks. I’ve got a new tool that I’ve been playing with that I think is mighty, mighty cool!

So my apologies if any of you folks think my focus has shifted. I have not intended it, but here is my recommitment to trending back to focusing on Charlottesville real estate and growth, politics, land use, etc., etc. So thanks for listening, thanks for watching.

Please call or e-mail me anytime with comments: 434-242-7140 or Jim@realcentralva.com or hit me up anytime at jimduncancville on any of your instant messengers. Thanks.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

What’s a Realtor to do when the sellers’ best interests conflict with MLS rules and/or Virginia Real Estate Board regulations?

As noted in 2007,

For a web site, either the firm or the licensee must include disclosure of their status as a real estate licensee in a prominent place, or have an easily identified link to such a disclosure if the firm or licensee owns the webpage or controls its content.

For emails, blogs, and bulletin boards, disclosure should be provided at the beginning or the end of the email.

The Code of Virginia reads in part:

“Advertising” means all forms of representation, promotion and solicitation disseminated in any manner and by any means of communication to consumers for any purpose related to licensed real estate activity.

“Disclosure” in the context of online advertising means (i) advertising that contains the firm’s licensed name, the city and state in which the firm’s main office is located and the jurisdiction in which the firm holds a license or (ii) advertising that contains the licensee name, the name of the firm with which the licensee is active, the city and state in which the licensee’s office is located and the jurisdiction in which the licensee holds a license. “Disclosure” in the context of other advertising means (a) advertising by the firm that contains the firm’s licensed name and the firm’s address or (b) advertising by an affiliated licensee that contains the licensee’s name, the name of the firm with which the licensee is active and the firm’s address.

The Charlottesville MLS rules state:

No URLs (branded or unbranded) will be allowed in fields viewable by the public.

But what about real estate video? (note: this is an “unbranded” video”) As far as I know, MLS’ aren’t in the business of hosting video … so we’re left to the vendors to fill the need. But we can’t post video in the MLS if the video has branding. So … if we post an unbranded video, aren’t we violating the Code of Virginia?

What about single property websites with more information than the MLS allows?

Here’s the thing – I (and a lot of other Realtors) *want* to provide more information in the MLS – more maps, more descriptions, more any links to schools, parks, neighborhood blogs, HOA information, GIS maps, bike routes, bus lines, but I cannot because the MLS is predicated on keeping the information limited. Sure, we have the best and most comprehensive database of property information, and the National Association of Realtors is readying their “Real Property Resource” but we need to empower the public – let them interact with the property.

The Charlottesville MLS rules, in line with many other MLS’ around the country, prevents “branding” within the MLS – meaning that single property websites, chock full of information -

Real-estate brochures often fail to highlight your home’s best features. They’re created by a rushed real-estate agent who has never lived in your house. By contrast, Hobby’s home-sale site is filled with great hyperlinked information (schools, nearby restaurants, a Google map, etc.). It offers more photos and text than you could find in other sources.

The internet is about more, yet MLS’ haven’t yet recognized or accepted this.

Example: The Charlottesville MLS limits the public remarks to 500 characters. 500 characters! In the age of the long-tail and the insatiable urge and demand for more information, we’re limiting the description of the properties we are marketing to 500 characters of text – no links, just text. (text is boring and so 1999)

For now, the best we can do is try to educate the public to do their due diligence … tell them to Google the address … and do our very best to ensure that one of our pages comes up … in this case, the number one result is Trulia (get that, MLS committees? We’re driving people away from our interface!) Luckily, my site comes up #2 and Nest Realty’s site #3 …

My personal philosophy when marketing properties is to put everything out there for the world to see – Buyers want information and transparency and Sellers want buyers to see why their house different and better. It’s in our Sellers’ best interests to provide as much information as possible, but we can’t. That hamstringing will come back to bite Realtors.

Takeaways:

Realtors – let’s expand our worldview a bit – more information is good.

Consumers/buyers/sellers – educate yourselves on how best to search for homes and please understand the limited frameworks under which we are operating. A lot of us are doing the very best that we can.

**Note: RSS subscribers, please click through to see the video. I am testing out some formatting options with my theme.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

The time will come I suspect when a real estate blogger is going to be placed in a similar situation, whether it’s a freedom of speech issue or a journalism -vs- advertising suit.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Recently, however, there have been more anonymous commenters than is typical. This makes readers’ tracking of discussions more difficult. I can see the IP addresses of visitors and can track who’s saying what, but the readers can’t. (but there’s a plugin for that)

(see Waldo’s history with anonymous comments – particularly the cited cartoon, which gratefully, I’ve never had a problem with).

So … rather than say “no anonymous comments,” here is my compromise request -

Please pick a handle and stick with it – I don’t care what it is, just please be consistent.

Thanks everybody!

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

I debated putting this on the sideblog, but feel that this sort of thing deserves front page coverage, if only to express empathetic irritation on Waldo’s behalf as well as the fact that he has to spend valuable time and money on this.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

(photo courtesy)

Seriously.

Every email, instant message, phone call, text … basically any conversation that comes about because of this blog is considered by me – the owner and operator – to be confidential. The range of questions that I receive is broad and varied, ranging from home inspection process questions to questions about specific neighborhoods to “how much should I offer …” to questions about agency – and dual agency.

Frequently, I will ask permission to post about the questions – if one person is curious about something, it’s likely others are curious as well.

Anytime – use the Contact page or the “Contact Me” widget in the sidebar.

Please – ask away; I love helping to educate people and I’m always looking for story ideas.

As such, I’ve updated the footer of the blog with a privacy policy and terms of use.

However, I am very careful to not infringe on any existing agency relationships.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

The server realcentralva.com is hosted on will be undergoing a hardware upgrade at approximately

11PM MST Monday January 12th

We expect the downtime for the account to be 1-2 hours, but could be completed long before that window. This upgrade will greatly increase performance on your server and therefor your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

BlueHost Support

I have a few blogs running on this server, so I’m hoping for the promised increase. In spite of my occasional complaints about Bluehost, they’re better at what they do than I could be, and they saved my butt – big time – last year.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Forcing myself to take nearly ten days off of writing has been very productive. I’ve been writing, but not posting. By deliberately not posting, I’ve missed it – the writing, the posting, the commenting – I think I’ll try to do this every year going forward.

One note – I’m planning to use my sideblog category more this year – for quick, short stories that do not necessarily warrant full, front-page exposure. To ensure you don’t miss any of that content, I humbly ask for you to subscribe to the blog’s feed. If subscribing via email is your preference, please enter your email in the box in the sidebar.

Looking back at the end of the year Realtor stats for 2007:

Compare the start of 2009 with the start of 2008:

One of the most lamentable developments was the Daily Progress’ decision to get rid of their archives. There is hope for the DP; though they’d have to refocus their goals.

Thoughts going forward -

- I’m going to try to do more in-depth analyses of the local real estate market.

- There will be a few more self-serving posts that blatantly show that I am a Realtor representing buyers and sellers in the Charlottesville region.

- I’m going to look to build and highlight the search tool you see in the sidebar – I sincerely believe it is the best way to search for homes in the Charlottesville area.

- I’m looking to find a good Realtor to share the management of RealWaynesboroVA – a third blog is just a bit too much work, and to be truly successful, I need more content and time dedicated to building that site. Suggestions for authors are welcomed (and you don’t have to be a Realtor to write there).

- A focus here and on RealCrozetVA will be on the community – building, maintaining, helping … this year is one where community is going to play a much stronger role than it has in the past decade.

- I’m looking to maintain, build on and strengthen my relationships with the local media. We have worked well together over the past few years, and I look forward to a productive 2009.

- I’m going to renew my request for the Virginia Association of Realtors to look at agency – specifically Dual Agency. My belief remains that they are negligent and delinquent by continuing to refuse to study agency. Consumers and Realtors are demanding a change – and the status quo is no longer sufficient.

Upcoming stories -

- Realtor stats update – how many will drop out this year? (we need to lose at least 40%)

- Shadow Inventory – 7 January

- Charlottesville Foreclosure Study – 6 January

- Buyer recommendation/testimonial – 14 January

- Blog Confidentiality – 20 January

- Quite a few more than I’m not yet mentioning.

- Story suggestions and requests always welcomed – please contact me anytime.

Don’t get used to this type of planning; these posts are a result of the past ten days off.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

In the meantime, feel free to contact me anytime, read about Charlottesville’s market statistics and analyses, or pop in and ask me a question if you see me available in the meebo sidebar (not you, RSS readers – you need to visit the blog for that!).

I will be on Twitter – the more I’m there the more I’m realizing what a positive influence that service is on my life – business and personal.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

What is Alltop?

You can think of an Alltop site as a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points—they are not destinations per se. The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed. In other words, our goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation” by providing “aggregation without aggravation.”

Productive Flourishing has a succinct definition as well as links to other great explanations of Alltop.

I’ve added their real estate widget as well; scroll down about a third of the way -

If you’re looking for something and you know the topic, try Alltop first – heck, try typing in the subject – food or business or psychology or science – and then .alltop.com. You might be surprised at how much faster you find what you’re looking for.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

- Market update

- Market Projections for 2009

- Walkable Neighborhoods – where are they in Charlottesville and Albemarle?

- Building communities – why the recession is good for neighborhoods and communities

- Dwellicious

- End of the year thoughts and predictions – about local politics, growth, the Real-VA triad (RealCentralVA, RealCrozetVA, RealWaynesboroVA) and their plans

- Request for stories/topics you want to see covered here

- I’m going to pick a few houses and track their sales histories over the past ten years – where’s the real appreciation?

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.