Podcast of Last Week’s Radio Appearance on WINA
Huge thanks to WINA for inviting me on again and CvillePodcast for producing the podcast.
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Going to San Francisco Next Week
Next week I will be sitting on a panel Real Estate Connect San Francisco 2008.
I actually have to work next week as well (there’s more to the real estate life than blogging and conferences), so I will unfortunately be missing Beer with Bloggers and RE BarCamp.
The panel on which I’ll be sitting is one that, to me is fascinating and intriguing, particularly in today’s market where there is an ongoing seismic shift away from Realtors’ core competencies being “searching for/finding homes” to “representation of clients’ best interests.” There is a lot to discuss and I expect that forty-five minutes won’t be nearly enough time.
This should be interesting.
Thursday, July 24, 3:00 pm - 3:45 pm
Changing Roles: Brokers & the MLS vs. the Listing Aggregators
Panelists:
Ben Phillips, Vice President & New Product Development, Managing Director, Realogy Franchise Group
Beverly Faull, GM & SVP, Fidelity National Information Services
Celeste Starchild, Vice President Broker Sales, ListHub: Broker Division of Threewide’s Broker Division
Jim Duncan, Realtor/Blogger, RealCentralVa.com
Sean Black, VP of Sales, Trulia
This is the third time I have been invited to speak at Inman Connect, and every time I learn something new.
- In San Francisco 2007 I spoke about the benefits of local blogging
- Earlier this year in New York City I was on a panel titled, “Blogging, a Fresh Take on Client Prospecting“
* I despise writing stories with “I” as one of the core elements, but writing this post in the third person would have been a bit odd (and perhaps arrogant sounding)
Media Appearance on Thursday 17 July
I’ll be on WINA’s Charlottesville Right-Now Thursday from five to five thirty - that’s 1070AM.
Last month, we had some great phone calls and questions, and although this time will be much shorter (thirty minutes in radio time flies by) I hope we’ll have an equally or more productive time. If you have any questions or topic suggestions, other than the current market report, please let me know.
Hint: Please feel free to subscribe to this blog by clicking here for RSS updates or here for email updates.
Update 18 July 2008: A few of the topics we discussed:
- The current state of the Charlottesville area real estate market
- Foreclosure rate in Charlottesville and Virginia; some perspective gained looking at RealtyTrac - Albemarle has 1 foreclosure for every 13,356 units; Prince William has 1 foreclosure for every 111 housing units.
- Starbucks are closing; what might the impact be on the housing markets around them?
- The impact that rentals are having on the market and respective market data.
Thanks to Coy and WINA for having me on; I’ll be on again next month as well.
I’m hoping the podcast gets posted before I leave town; Coy’s introduction of me was more than I could have hoped for (and I’d argue it’s all true! 
)
Recapping yesterday’s radio appearance discussing the Charlottesville Real Estate Market
My favorite two answers are “it depends” and “I don’t know” - they’re among the most honest responses I know. Providing a one-size-fits-all response to many if not most of the questions and subjects we discussed would be irresponsible and possibly dishonest. Hopefully the podcast will be up soon so that I can recapture the questions and discussions we had.
In short we spent about forty five minutes rambling about the state of the Charlottesville area real estate market and touched on the following topics (from memory) -
- Have green homes reached a tipping point?
- How are Charlottesville Realtors being affected by the market shift?
- “I overpaid two and a half years ago, and the house had a bunch of problems that were covered by the As-Is clause; do I have any recourse?
- “I’m relocating to the Charlottesville area - how do I do this?” - Candidly, not explicitly asking this person (Jennifer) to contact me was a bit challenging; I wanted to ask for the business but see my time on the radio as providing information and analysis, not selling/shilling my services.
- Inventory levels now versus last year and other years. I don’t like same-year month-to-month (May-June) comparisons, as they reflect current trends but do not provide historical perspective; for that reason, I provide Year-over-Year analyses.
- When is the real estate market going to turn?
- Those who use the assessed value to determine market value are looking at the absolute wrong data and are misguided.
- How do I help my clients assess whether now is the “right” time to buy or sell?
At least one story idea came of the show, and I might try to write a story about it in the next couple of weeks - what percentage of properties are on the market in the respective localities in the Central Virginia region? ie - in June of 2006 x% of homes in the region were on the market in Fluvanna, whereas in June of 2008, x% of homes are on the market there. I’ll try, but I won’t promise.
Also coming up this week, the first half of 2008 market report.
Jim Duncan on WNRN discussing the Charlottesville area real estate mareket [60:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadMedia Appearance on Sunday
Tune in to WNRN this Sunday where I will be discussing the Charlottesville area real estate market. If there are any particular topics you would like me to address, please let me know.
Duplicate content in the RE.NET
The demand for new and original (real estate) content is insatiable.
Duplicate content is making its way around the real estate blog world, and I am trying to determine if this is a necessarily “bad thing.” There are myriad discussions and opinions about duplicate content’s impact on search engine results. Google had a recent blog post specifically addressing duplicate content due to scrapers.
One of the key concepts of the real estate blogging space has been the original content and unique voices found at each different site; this originality seems to be waning a bit this year as the medium grows and the same content is published at different sites. It’s not spamming, but does it dilute the message and/or the content? Or does this dispersion broaden the reach? I don’t know yet.
Producing quality content consistently for different audiences is immensely challenging, but often times the same story will appeal to different audiences, and it’s important to reach those audiences. For example, and I’m not alone in my writing responsibilities, I write at a couple of places -
- RealCentralVA - a blog focused on the Charlottesville/Central Virginia real estate market and trends affecting same. Readers here tend to be (thankfully) more local - local buyers, sellers, consumers, media, Realtors, etc.
- Agent Genius, a national real estate magazine that discusses industry trends, news and opinion. I perceive this audience to be national real estate professionals, affiliated/related people and real estate industry voyeurs.
- VARBuzz, the blog of the Virginia Association of Realtors that focuses mostly on state-level real estate issues and general trends. The audience is primarily Virginia Realtors and Virginia real estate professionals.
Why write in so many places? Simple - and for the same reason I read each site - each forum speaks to a different audience, and the overlap of readership is perhaps (unless you’re a real estate dork like me) low.
One of the leading visionaries/thinkers in this space is Pat Kitano of TransparentRE. He has discussed Content Distribution, Blogging and Journalism, real estate blogs’ inherent “niche” qualities, and The Real Online Real Estate Magazines.
Change/education happens nationally and locally, and I want to be part of it, and part of that effort is to reach the maximum targeted audience possible.
If you’re wondering why my posting is light here from time to time, you may want to check these places, and maybe even subscribe to their feeds.
One day soon we may see exclusivity demanded by readers and publishers - and we may see syndication networks. Would that be a desirable evolution? I don’t know that yet either.
Naturally, I am posting this in two of the places I write - because each reaches different audiences. Going forward, I am going to strive to publish unique content once - at one location.
The original version of this article appeared at Agent Genius.
Social Media Explained and Expanded
Pat Kitano does it again with this excellent demonstration of social media’s value:
For example -
I can be contacted here in a variety of ways; below are a couple of the many.
(the closest thing to a resume I have to offer)
I’ll go ahead also and use this post as a shameless request for listeners/callers this Sunday on WNRN. A few of the topics we plan to discuss are -
-owners being upside-down when trying sell their house
-being uncomfortable buying in these times, even though it may be the best time around
-how much should a seller lower the sales price?
Podcast of Tuesday’s Radio appearance
Here is the podcast of my appearance on Tuesday’s Charlottesville - Right Now! show on WINA. Every time I do radio, I am amazed at how fast the time goes by.
* Duncan’s analysis of the current housing market in Central Virginia.
* Tips on how to price your house to sell in the current market.
* Public transportation- The impact of the lack of public transportation on potential buyers in the area.
* The desirability of urban living and its effect on housing prices
Topics mentioned in addition to the items above -
- $4.00+ Gasoline - High Enough to Make you Move?
- Vacant houses and homeowners’ insurance
- The expansion and contraction (geographically) of the Central Virginia real estate market (including Waynesboro/Augusta)
- Real estate assessments, and why I think that they are irrelevant with regards to market value
- Renting homes that haven’t sold
- Lease purchases
- Fuel prices, power prices, water prices increasing - and its affect on affordability
- Sticky housing prices
Things I will write about next week due to the show -
- Breakdown of the Central Virginia market by price range
- Vacant houses and homeowners’ insurance - denial of claims, policies sold to builders, homeowners
To Craig - Thank you for your comments and for saying, “Jim is exactly right.”
Thanks Coy and WINA for the opportunity.
Jim Duncan on WINA discussing the Charlottesville Virginia Real Estate market [34:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadSubscribe!
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