First Wednesdays wants to hear from you.

If you are part of an internet company, design / development firm or startup project in Charlottesville, we’d love to hear from you. The goal of First Wednesdays is to grow the internet / startup community in town by highlighting companies and hosting networking events. Help us find you!

The Charlottesville is consistently rated as a great place to live, and is a destination location for buyers and families and people who choose to live in Charlottesville* and work elsewhere – whether in Los Angeles, Denver, New York … and live in Charlottesville.

I’m curious to learn just how many internet and tech firms there are in the Charlottesville area. HighTech Cville, which seems to be a site by OpenSource Connections, lists 405 organizations in Charlottesville.

* Usually Charlottesville/Albemarle.

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Alerted by a Tweet from @sajego:

Dear Charlottesville municipalities – sign up for Google Broadband! http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi

I read on …

Google is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make Internet access better and faster for everyone. We plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We’ll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

From now until March 26th, we’re asking interested municipalities to provide us with information about their communities through a Request for information (RFI), which we’ll use to determine where to build our network.

Google goes big. Nearly every single time … but will they bring fiber to Charlottesville?

Update 23 February 2010: It seems that UVA, Albemarle and Charlottesville can cooperate.

Charlottesville, Albemarle County and the University of Virginia are considering making a joint application for a pilot program that would install fiber-optic cable allowing for broadband speeds up to 100 times faster than what the community currently enjoys.

Update 24 February 2010: Charlottesville City Councilor Dave Norris is asking for the public’s help in getting Google’s attention.

More at the Wall Street Journal

From TechCrunch:

Google owns its own vast network of dark fiber around the globe to connect its data centers, speed up search, and lower its cost of streaming billions of videos a month on YouTube. With this project, Google is taking its first step in connecting that fiber backbone to consumer’s homes. It is not clear what Google services will come with a broadband subscription, but it is a safe bet that Google will be the default search and Gmail will be the default email. Maybe they can throw in Google Voice service and an Android phone that lets you talk over WiFi.

Charlottesville has been consistently rated as a top “Digital City” and while I think it’s a bit of a silly designation, why don’t we capitalize and leverage this?

For the sixth year in a row, the Center for Digital Government has ranked the City of Charlottesville as one of the Top Ten Digital Cities in America.

So what say you, Charlottesville and Albemarle governments??? This is something on which you really, really, really should collaborate and cooperate.

Tell the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and the City of Charlottesville City Council your thoughts.

From Google:

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Re-purposing a post from my posterous:

If Google announcing their GPS did this to Garmin’s and Tom Tom’s stocks,

What’s this going to do to Realtors’?

Google announced a big real estate move about two hours ago: listings can now be viewed on any Google Map by clicking on the “More” button, a position heretofore reserved for photos, transit information and other overlays.

As I wrote in 2006:

Being able to successfully represent clients will define the future of this profession. There is much online competition for the real estate industry – Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, Google -  that will fragment real estate search. Picking up the pieces by representing clients and their best interests will define the successful Realtor. No amount of online data will replace a walking into a basement and immediately knowing whether there has been water infiltration recently, or whether the wood floors are real 3/4 inch wood or a laminate-type product.

Google changes everything.

Those Realtors who depend on the MLS as their sole (or primary) value-add need to find new careers.

A good (or great!) Realtor offers at least the following:

- Context
- Information

- Local knowledge
- Data Interpretation
- Negotiating
- Counseling, psychology, philosophy, market predictions, market interpretation
- And a whole lot more.

One of the benefits of writing a real estate blog in Charlottesville for nearly five years is the archives.

Looking back at what I wrote in 2005, it looks like Google has improved a little bit:

Limitations (to the former Google Base):
- simply too much information
- mapping aspects of Google are limited; identifying specific property addresses is not accurate. I have had to identify the properties with the town or the zip code rather than the actual property address.

- the search aspect is not yet refined. How can someone search for a three bedroom, two bath home with at least 1800 square feet on at least .3 acres in the Henley Middle School district?

- there is not yet a consistent search criteria used by all posters

- The search results (at least for now) seem to be too easily manipulated by bulk submitters.

More of what I’ve written over the years about Google and real estate.

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

For those of you who love using FranklyMLS to search for homes in Charlottesville, it’s working again.

I’ll spare you the gory details and who is to blame (it’s about MLS politics and shifting/evolving technical specifications), but suffice it to say, thanks to Frank, FranklyMLS is working. (Don’t forget about my search tool, too!)

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

At least that’s the angle Charlottesville Tomorrow sees in the announcement that Charlottesville will be getting stadium seating.

Apparently, Regal has made a business decision of their own to move ahead with an upgrade. Sufficient state and federal funding is not expected for the Hillsdale Drive project until 2015 at the earliest. Part of Hillsdale was identified as a “shovel ready” project for which Charlottesville has sought federal stimulus funds.

“We were aware that there was talk of a road project either near or on our property,” said Russ Nunley, Regal’s Vice President of Marketing & Communications in an interview with Charlottesville Tomorrow. “We are unaware of where that project stands with respect to location, timeline and approvals.”

It seems that Charlottesville/Albemarle’s reputation of endlessly studying and not actually doing is well-known. One would assume that Regal Theaters wouldn’t be planning to spend so much money if they thought that they’d have to tear the theater down in the near future.

Update 05 May 2009: The Daily Progress has more today in their story, and this quote from David Slutzy makes one think that the City/County may consider eminent domain eventually … (bolding mine)

“It seems a bit bizarre,” he said. “I’m excited that they have plans to expand the theater. But, my word, it’s a bit surprising.”

Slutzky is skeptical that an alternative route for the Hillsdale extension could be found.

“There’s just not a lot of wiggle room,” he said.

Ideally, he added, the community would find a way to have both the upgraded movie theater, as well as the completed road project. “Both would be good,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we will have that road.”

Update 06 May 2009: Bumped from Sideblog to main blog because Waldo at Cvillenews caught the same thing I did – it seems that

1) Eminent Domain is at least being alluded to as an option
2) The chances of the Hillsdale Connector being built before the new theater is obsolete are slim to none.

Update 15 May 2009: The Daily Progress has an editorial on this: (bolding mine)

Regal officials may or may not know local politics well enough to have taken it into their considerations, but it is tempting to speculate: Are they aware of our area’s propensity to endlessly debate public improvements, so that changing conditions on the ground often overtake and render obsolete our plans for, say, new roadways? If they possess that awareness, are they explpoiting it in their effort to “expeditiously” get the new theater built?

My thinking: probably. They’re taking a calculated risk at our area’s collective incompetence with regard to building new roads. And it’s probably a safe bet.

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

(Click through to see the video)

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.

And apparently hasn’t been working for a few days now … The Charlottesville MLS folks are aware of the problem and are now working on it. My search isn’t working, Nest’s is not, and neither is FranklyMLS, nor are a few more around Charlottesville – so it’s not just mine.

When the problem is resolved, I will post an update and move this post to the sideblog.

Darn it.

Update 16 April 2009: From Diverse Solutions’ CEO … this is how to handle a problem … basically we are dealing with two problems – one with Diverse Solutions and one with our MLS provider, Solid Earth:

I wanted to personally give you an update to what is going on. As you probably know one of our storage servers decided to freak out on Tuesday. Despite the fact that it was a high end storage server with numerous drives that were using RAID 5 for reliability it did fail. Our development team and I worked through the night on Tuesday to do everything we could. We were able to bring it back to life and put it back online yesterday morning but due to some corruption within the RAID it couldn’t handle the traffic put on it and failed again. We then made the decision to redownload every photo for those MLSs affected instead of spending our time resurrecting something that may or may not work ultimately. Images are now going to be stored on Amazons S3 storage network and served up through Amazons Cloud Front content delivery network. This increases the reliability and speed in which the photos are being served up. Photos will now be served up to the IDX visitor from the closest of 14 datacenters around the world which 8 of them are in the US instead of our Los Angeles location. Our tests show it is blazing fast and even more so for those on the East Coast. Most MLSs photos on the failed server have been retrieved and put up on S3. But as it turns out Charlotteville Area Association of REALTORS started experiencing some problems with their RETS server on Tuesday as well. We have been unable to connect to start retrieving photos yet. We have been working with them yesterday and this morning to try and resolve the problem on their end. In the mean time we are going to try and get our old server up again to see if it can handle just getting CAAR MLS images to S3. I sincerely apologize. In our five years being in business we have never experienced anything like this before. I personally appreciate your tact, patience and understanding in this situation. I will give you updates as they become available. If you have any questions please let me know.

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

Very, very cool. You may have read about Walkscore on my blog before …

A lot of my clients searching for homes in the City of Charlottesville (less-so) in Albemarle or the other surrounding counties are very concerned about walkability. I’ve written about being able to walk or bike to “stuff” many times over the years. Heck, I’ve even defined modern civilization as being “close to a coffee shop or grocery store.”

Now I’m very pleased to see that the folks who do my search tool, have implemented Walkscore. People want to be able to walk or bike to stuff – coffee shops, restaurants, grocery stores …

Caution: Walkscore is not 100% accurate. It’s probably not even 80% accurate … but it presents a good guide. If a house has a Walkscore of 90, it’s probably pretty walkable. If its score is 20, probably notsomuch.

From DS’ blog:

1. Search by Walk Score. Now this is cool. We love being able to put in an address Walk Score, but it makes it SO much better when you don’t have to constantly look up the Walk Score for each address for each property you’re interested in buying / leasing.

   2. Sort by Walk Score. If you can search by Walk Score, you should be able to sort by Walk Score too. Just click in the “sort by” box at the top of the results and choose “Walk Score, Highest First” to order the search results from highest to lowest Walk Score.

   3. View the Walk Score in both the search results and property details. Even if our clients choose not to show the “Search by Walk Score” search panel, they can still enable the functionality to allow their visitors to see the Walk Score for each listing in both the search results and property details. Check it out here; just look for the little walking guy icon at the top-right of each search result and in the top-right corner of the property details area.

   4. View the Walk Score tile. When you click on the “Walk Score” link at the top-right of the property details area, you’ll see the Walk Score tile that shows all of the amenities that are factored into the score.

But … FranklyMLS has had a link to Walkscore for some time now … just not the sweet integration (yet).

*note … I’m going to move this to the main blog shortly, but was faced with a choice – publish and push off the Economic Summit blog or don’t publish and be slow to respond. I chose a happy medium.

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

We expect to be copied – on our signs, on how we market, on how we work with clients – and that, in and of itself, is a good thing. Will others do it better? I’d like
to think that no one else can do what we have done, but I’d rather not underestimate our competition .

Heck, I and we copy other people as often as we can … first mover is cool, but sometimes the real skills are recognizing emerging trends and technologies and then having the gumption, wherewithal and ability to implement said trends and technologies.

The signs are an extension of Nest’s collective intent, start towards our “one size does not fit all” philosophy …

Downtownenvy’s comment the other day hit the nail on the head (bolding mine):

I like this! Not only do you get a price on the property without stopping the car, but this sign is actually more about the property for sale than the agency representing it. That’s refreshing. I would love it if I were a seller.

It’s not about us, it’s about the client.

Update 26 May 2009: I’m going to be transcribing these videos from here until my new found partner stops working with me.

Hey! Jim Duncan, RealCentralVA.com here. It’s Wednesday morning and lots to do. Buyers and sellers are crawling all over the place which is wonderful! I think there has been an up-tick in activity on both sides of the isle.

I want to talk today about innovation. If you saw the release of Nests’ new signs (I’ll have a link here at the bottom) they’re pretty kick butt. That was evidenced by the fact that NBC 29 even did a 45 second segment on how we have shaken things up in the real estate market here in Charlottesville. I think it’s pretty cool.

The one challenge that we’re facing is that we expect to be copied. Take the fact that flattery is best shown by imitating. At least two people in our market have bought Diverse Solutions as a search since I implemented it about six months ago. So thank you Diverse Solutions for having a great product.

So what do we do? We expect to be copied. We expect people to emulate what we are doing, and frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them do an even better job than we do. So that’s a really great thing though because it shows that real estate is changing. It shows that people have to strive to keep up and get better and realize that stagnation which has been the rule in Real Estate for the last several years is no longer good enough. Good enough was good enough to get by and survive and sometimes thrive, but now, we’ve got to change every single day. New data, new information, new technologies and that’s a really cool thing. So it’s keeping us on our toes and holding us accountable through what we see online and also by seeing how our competitors try to keep up with what we are doing.

That’s it for Wednesday. Talk to you soon.

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Spotcrime.com has tracked crimes and provided a public, searchable interface for the City of Charlottesville for a while.

Now the County of Albemarle will be providing this vital service as well. (read more at the DP).

I wonder how much this costs.

Thank you.

On first run, I like Spotcrime’s interface more, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I’m grateful for this tool – and I expect my client are as well. Now, if we can just figure out how to mash this up with a real estate search tool …

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

How do you search for homes? In Charlottesville or anywhere else?

I got a call recently from a buyer who was searching homes.com and found one of my listings. Unfortunately, the listing was actually under contract (and had been for a while). I first thanked her for telling me that one of my listings was inaccurately displayed on Homes.com and asked how I could help.

She expressed her frustration – that she had been searching online for a home for a while; that whenever she found a home she was interested in, she would call the agent to go see it. Real estate search is fragmented, and it’s likely to be that way for a while. I’m frustrated, too. There is no credible aggregator of all the homes for sale – whether they be “marketed”

To which I said – “I think you’re going about this the wrong way.”

- First – pick an agent who will be able to guide you through the process (for instance, tell you where to search for homes online).

- When you call a sellers’ agent to show you the house, that agent is not representing your best interests – that agent is representing the seller and the sellers’ best interests.

How do you pick a good Buyer’s Agent – for you?

Once you have an agent who is able to guide you through the process, search well and search often.

How do I learn about how my clients and others are searching for homes? I ask. (I’m not afraid of either asking or saying “I don’t know”)

This is one of my clients’ search processes – and this is my public “thank you!” for sharing and allowing me to publish your work -

How do you search for homes in Charlottesville?

1. Your IDX site- Browse the map for affordable homes in places I want to live. Or, check the local MLS for new listings and then look on IDX to see if there is more information there.

2. Look up found home on City Assessment (Ed note: or Albemarle County or Fluvanna, etc.) website to find:

a. Tax Assessment price (editor’s note:In my opinion, assessed values have little to no correlation to what a property’s actual market value would be)

b. Who owns it? Does the owner live there? This often leads to another search on the City Assessment website for the owner’s name to see how many properties the owner has. Do the owners seem to be in good financial shape or have they made a lot of bad decisions (i.e. may need to get rid of the property to stay above water)?

c. Check for any inconsistencies in square ft, room numbers, etc between MLS listing and tax assessment. d. Look at picture to see how different the home looked a few years back (pics usually taken in 2002 or 2003). (ed note: this leads to a separate rant about Realtors stripping the MLS of photos of their listings when the listing expires/sells – this kills the accuracy and historical context of the MLS)e. Study transfer information to see when house was last sold, what it sold for, when it may have had work done, etc.

3. Use Google Maps to see what surrounds the house. Is the street tree-y? Industrial? How far is the nearest park? How far to downtown, UVA, etc? (ed note: check this out)

4. Google the street address + Charlottesville to get more information about the neighborhood. For example: Grove St. plus Charlottesville clued me into the Grove Square development (which I was unaware of because I’m new to C’ville). (ed note: don’t forget to visit Charlottesville Tomorrow for the most in-depth reporting on growth, development and politics in Charlottesville/Albemarle)

5. Google the complete address of the house to see if anyone has written anything about the house. Search the address of the house on Real C’ville Bubble blog to see if people have been blogging/laughing about the home’s asking price.

6. Lastly, physically drive or walk by the house the old-fashioned way.


For readers – what improvements would you like to see in the search process? What do you like about how you search for homes?

For Realtors – if you’re not using the MLS photo capacity – 50 pictures – you’re often doing your fellow Realtors, prospective buyers, and most importantly, your clients – a remarkable disservice.

For Sellers – do you check your home’s listing online to make sure your Realtor is putting sufficient pictures online? (I assume that the very first visitor to the listing online is going to be my client – and that they will tell me if they thing I’m doing something wrong. In fact, I ask for and encourage their feedback – it’s one of the ways I improve.

I’ll help you search – that’s why I provide what I perceive to be the best ways to search for homes here/here – but when you want representation, let me know.

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

Zillow’s three year anniversary presents an opportunity to reflect on the past three years. A lot has changed in the real estate tech space, but the real estate business remains a belly-to-belly business, with client relationships solidified with handshakes and time spent together in the car, in houses, at the coffee shop.

Zillow’s presence in the Charlottesville real estate market is negligible; in spite of this I’ve always considered them another tool in the good Realtor’s toolbox. For instance, check out the zestimate on a property I am currently marketing in Crozet: none.

Zillow provides Realtors an opportunity to defend their value by giving consumers more and better questions to ask.

Their presence has pushed virtually every facet of the real estate industry. Forward, in my opinion.

But – from a technological perspective, I doubt that real estate search would be where it is today with Zillow’s influence. It can be a great tool.

Realtors have to defend their practices, their value, their quality – in at least small part because we have to answer the question – why should I trust you rather than Zillow? I for one, have welcomed the opportunity to answer this. (more in a later post)

Brian Boero at 1000Watt Blog offers this kick ass post on Zillow’s three year anniversary – (bolding mine/read the whole thing)

The real estate industry owes Zillow a debt of gratitude, whatever their fate may be. The backlash against the Zestimate was stoked by those with a competitive agenda and clung to by agents who, perhaps justifiably, had an utter lack of confidence in their own capacity to deliver value. The Zestimate was and remains a very rough measure, but worse, I would argue, was the slapdash pricing guidance offered by the hundreds of thousands of shamefully under-qualified agents running wild during the boom years. True professionals never fretted about Zillow, consumers got more information to aid decisions, and brokers were forced to rethink their own approach to merchandising their valuation services. Everyone that matters comes out ahead.

And … This from the Wall Street Journal’s “Developments” blog bolding mine)

When it comes to real estate, more Americans are moving from denial to acceptance. Zillow.com, a Web site that provides housing-market information, says it found in a recent survey that 57% of participants believe their homes lost value during the past year. That was up from just 38% in a similar survey during last year’s second quarter.

A website. Not THE website.

One question I (try to) always ask my new buyer clients is “where are you searching for homes right now?” Frequently they will say that they are using my home search site, the local Realtor Association’s public MLS site, occasionally Realtor.com, and sometimes they will say Zillow or Trulia, and I heard Homes.com from a customer last week, too. In consumers’ minds there is not yet one place to search for all homes that are currently for sale. And for now, that’s ok.

Zillow makes me a better Realtor because they force me to defend my value to consumers. Defining and defending value and competency in a vacuum, without a foil, is challenging.

I still think that Zillow (nor any software) cannot adapt as I wrote a couple of years ago, and that no software, no algorithm can determine value as well as intelligent, intuitive, perceptive humans. There are far to many unzillowables to account for.

Related stories from RealCentralVA

Fragmented search with Zillow and Trulia – 12/2007

Zillow might be righter(er) – 1/2008

What if – Zillow is right? – 8/2006

Zillow steps it up – 12/2006

Full Zillow coverage over the years.

Greg’s comment rings true today:

General impressions: More agents seem to hate Realtor.com than fear Zillow.com.

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

Just curious -

If Realtor.com is displaying sold data (data apparently not available in Charlottesville – yet, bolding mine)

With some areas experiencing a 25 to 39 percent decrease in home prices in the third quarter, buyers need to remain competitive in potential bidding wars. Using REALTOR.com®, the #1 homes for sale Web site, buyers can track price changes on homes of interest, monitor actual sales data on nearby homes within 24 hours of a sale, and get the latest photos and video tours of thousands of Southern California properties.

Why can I not display the exact same sold and under contract data. Per my the Charlottesville Area MLS (rules of which I assume are common throughout the country):

Display of expired, withdrawn, contingent, sold, and pending listings is prohibited.

I’m working on finding out more about the rules and regs, but if this holds true, how can Realtor.com not be seen as a competitor of any Realtor aspiring to have a strong web presence? (Like this)

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

Daniel and the folks at Cloudbrain have proposed what I think is a brilliant idea that is probably being done elsewhere … this would be perfect for Realtors who don’t need the wasteful infrastructure provided by larger facilities, when all many of us need is a coffee shop, occasionally a larger conference room and quiet space to work/write. The idea’s not necessarily new; I’ve heard it a couple of times locally over the past few years – what’s needed is for someone to step to the plate and lead the way.

Based on the comments on his post, it seems that there are plenty of interested people out there seeking this space.

We’ve been throwing this idea around for a while and I’ve talked to enough people that have been excited about it, it seemed time to take the idea to a new level: A Blog Post.

WHAT IF…

We leased one of the large empty office spaces on the Downtown Mall and turned it in to a workspace for internet workers, developers, designers, bloggers, writers (etc.) that work alone or in small teams.  It might look something like:

• Fast WiFi
• Large tables where you could work on your laptop
• Couches and comfy chairs for lounging / discussions
• A conference room you could use for meetings with clients
• Coffee, WII, Xbox and other brain stimulants
• Whiteboards for brainstorming and announcements
• Simple rules like “Headphones = Do Not Disturb”
• A community of smart creative web workers

There seems to be a lot of 1 – 4 person companies in Cville that (1) Spend most of their time on a computer (2) Want to be Downtown (3) Are paying too much for office space or work from home and (3) Would benefit from being around other creative people during the day.

We could charge a monthly fee (similar to a gym membership) and you could use it as much or as little as you want.  Would anyone be interested in something like this?  Leave a comment with feedback / suggestions.  If we could get 15-20 people to commit, I think it could be do-able.

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My nifty new “search for homes” tool is down, but I expect it’ll be fixed shortly.

Update – all seems to be well now. Also, Diverse Solutions released all sorts of updates today. -

A couple very useful changes we’ve also made to the front-end experience are:

- Sort listing results by % Price Drop
– Baths are now split into Full and Half Baths (where available)
– Cookieless Browsing is now supported

Sorting by % Price Drop can be very useful when trying to find great deals on the MLS. And of course having Full+Half Baths makes finding the perfect home easier.

Cookieless Browsing actually serves to correct two separate issues. The first being simply that some people have turned off Cookies (don’t know what cookies are? check this out).

So – Have at it – heck, post in the comments your favorite searches that you create!

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- Meadowcreek Parkway may be getting closer to reality – C-Ville.

Context:

Meadowcreek Parkway study – 9/2005

What if The Meadowcreek Parkway didn’t exist? 6/2008

For the most possible context – Charlottesville Tomorrow’s Meadowcreek Parkway category

- The Infrastructure we Want - Daniel Nairn

After reading upwards of 100 comments, I found only one person in favor of funding new roads. And this person identified himself/herself as a transportation planner for a State DOT. hmmm.

- MPO continues review of future transportation projects; Supports road widening and overpasses on US 29

Three members of the MPO Policy Board were present at the group’s meeting on November 24, 2008. The Board continued its discussion of the UNJAM 2035 regional transportation plan, endorsed the transportation component of the Places29 Master Plan, and discussed ways to boost public participation in the discussion of transportation projects.

Seriously – if you’re not paying attention and getting involved in these discussions, why not?

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The first two weeks have been useful since implementing the new MLS search here on RealCentralVA. Feedback has been 99% positive.

Here’s what I’m seeing so far -

1 – All the photos and virtual tours still aren’t coming over – I think this may have something to do with the type of feed they’re using, but we’ll sort it out soon.

2 – The Days on Market aren’t entirely accurate – they seem to be displaying the days since the listing was last updated rather than the actual Days on Market.

3 – The School districts still aren’t displaying, and this is quite frustrating as this was one of my most-anticipated features – to be able to save searches with multiple school districts.

4 – I’m setting up some pretty cool searches which I’ll be talking about in more detail soon. For example – Charlottesville foreclosures, Albemarle foreclosures, (more on the dynamics and specifics of these later), Homes in Albemarle with price reductions of at least 10 percent in the past four weeks, (and in the City of Charlottesville)

5 – I’m loving the RSS subscriptions.

6 – Diverse Solutions remains highly recommendable; they’re very responsive (usually respond within 24 hours).

I’m going to do a post in the next couple of days highlighting some of the key features of the search – search by MLS number, how each listing has a permanent link that you can email to your friends (or use in a blog post ) …

To those using this – thank you. I sincerely appreciate the time you’ve spent using it and the feedback you’ve given, as well as your patience as we work out this new tool. Once it’s fully optimized I think it will be by far the best tool in the area.

What are your thoughts? What’s good and bad about it so far? How are you using it? Should I require registration to use it after an arbitrary number of searches?

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It’s a simple question – do you participate in IDX (Internet Data Exchange)? Meaning, will you be marketing my property not just in the Charlottesville are MLS (to other Realtors) and on the local Realtors’ Association site, as well as Realtor.com but – on every other Realtors’ site who has an IDX feed (such as the one found here)- therefore substantially increasing traffic and exposure to my property?

Read more at Agent Genius (specifically the comments).

Realtors – also read Michael Wurzer’s post and Brian Larson’s post (and consider subscribing to both). There’s a lot happening the the acronym world about which we need to learn (NAR/DOJ/VOW/MLS/IDX/etc)

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Finally. After watching my friends Jay in Phoenix and Kris in San Diego do such wonderful things with their MLS search tools, I’m finally able to announce what I believe to be the single best tool to search for homes in the Charlottesville, Virginia area* -

Since founding RealCentralVA in 2005, I have never put a “Search for Homes” feature on my blog because none of the ones available had what I wanted; the technology is finally here thanks to Diverse Solutions. Also, I haven’t wanted to put “a” search solution here as I want it to add value to readers, rather than detract from the content and goals of the site. This tool, which you can use here, fulfills what I’ve been looking for.

A few of the features -

- Get alerts sent to you via Email or RSS

- Search by multiple School Districts – (eventually you should be able to search by more than one school district – I’m working on this)

- Search by Price Drops - ex: 10% in the past 10 days – and indication an property may finally be priced right

- Search by Foreclosure/Pre-Foreclosure status (still testing this one for its validity)

- Save your searches!

- Add notes to properties you’re watching.

One thing I’m already wanting to have changed (and there are likely more waiting to be found) – increase the number of results that display. I want more.

There are likely a few nuggets here and there that you’ll find useful and interesting.

With this tool, you are able to search almost the entire Charlottesville MLS – and as much as you’ll get anywhere else in the Charlottesville area – there are a few brokerages who choose not to display their listings in what is called an IDX feed – (more on this later)*.

One additional note – for the time being, I am going to keep registration off, meaning that you are free to search as much as you want (although I reserve the right to experiment from time to time). However – in order to save searches, get alerts delivered to you via RSS or email, you do need to give me some information (how else would the email gnome find you?) I’ll never spam you anyway. Promise.

Give it a spin by searching for Charlottesville homes here

Eventually, I’ll have a search widget in the sidebar of RealCentralVA, a search page and widget just for Crozet at RealCrozetVA, and hopefully one day soon at RealWaynesboroVA.

Be nice – I rushed to get it up today because I couldn’t wait any longer.

Please, please, please let me know what you think – I’ll make the changes as quickly as possible. It’s evolving and I’m happy to finally have somewhere to start.

* Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Nelson -

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Not everyone wants to be followed. Sometimes a little bit of discretion is called for.

I’m @JimDuncan if you’re curious.

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