Diverse Solutions provides the “search for homes” tool that so many people use, and yesterday it got even better with their new release (researching this post, I realized that it’s only been a couple months since their last release).

- Radius search – check it out now! Walkability and proximity to stuff are two of the most important things my buyer clients are asking for.

- Search with polygons (only available on the backend by me for now … what polygons do you want?) and I imagine that soon it will likely be available to users

- Driving Directions

(have you seen that you can search for open houses as well? It’s an older feature but mighty useful!)

I have long wanted to provide the best real estate search tool in the Charlottesville area for my readers, visitors, buyers, etc – my role is a client representative, and I firmly believe that by empowering my clients, we all are better off.

Soon I might do a voice-over, but you really don’t want to listen to me, do you?

I’ll be testing this out myself (and implementing it more widely shortly)

As an aside … I don’t treat the visitors/readers/clients as “leads” despite this term’s persistence in the real estate vernacular.

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Beta Beat has an extremely alarming story:

But there’s a nightmare scenario: if banks learn how to use social media, they could gather information they aren’t allowed to ask for on a credit application—including race, marital status and receipt of public assistance—or worse, to redline segments of the social graph.

In other words: choose your online friends wisely, for they may one day determine your APR.

And if you don’t have a Facebook account? Maybe you won’t even be considered for a loan.

(the image above is my social graph on LinkedIn – are we connected?)

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I had a Droid Pro. I really liked it, particularly the keyboard. Now I’ve gone Nexus. Galaxy, that is.

Pros -

- The screen is fantastic.

- It’s fast. Very, very fast.

- Folders are very useful.

- The panoramic feature is easy and extremely useful. The camera itself is very fast.

- The phone itself feels good in my pocket and hand. Not too light, not too heavy.

Cons -

- The battery life sucks. As in, 6 hours of normal usage and I’m liable to be dead in the water.

- The phone itself is a little big.

- Phone coverage seems to be is worse than with the Droid Pro – in outlying parts of the Counties and inside buildings particularly; where I used to have a strong signal, now I barely have one bar.

- It seems to does have trouble reconnecting to the network when switching off of a wireless network.

- The camera is worse than my Droid Pro’s.

- No USB transfer of data stinks.

- No Facebook contacts sync; I didn’t think about this before I bought it and didn’t think it would be much of an issue, but despite my mistrust of Facebook, the contact sync is mighty useful.

I’ve thought about returning the phone, I really have. But ultimately, I like having the latest and greatest, I like having a pure Google phone that will theoretically (hopefully?) get updates first. And I’ll be able to transfer this phone to one of my kids in 6 to 9 months anyway …

This isn’t Danny Sullivan’s excellent review of the Galaxy Nexus, and it’s not intended to be.

Also, Wired’s review includes this –

Unfortunately, with the increase in speed comes a loss in quality. Image resolution is pretty crummy, and unless you’ve got a steady hand, you’ll probably need to snap three or four shots to get a truly non-blurry picture. Still, I’ve missed countless precious moments over the years due to sluggish shutters; I’ll take a slightly fuzzy photo over nothing at all any day of the week.

For my uses, the camera’s deficiencies are more significant. The speed is fantastic, but the quality is very disappointing.

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Charlottesville Tomorrow reports that “The Albemarle Board of Supervisors has voted to pay a consultant to determine if the county’s existing policy on cell towers will impede implementation of the next generation of wireless communications services.”

Infrastructure – wired and wireless is crucial for quality of life, competitiveness and economic development. Let’s hope the County figures this out.

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This phase of the process was all about eliminating geographical areas of Charlottesville-Albemarle. Once we accomplished that phase, we were able to have a much more productive time in the car.

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First, Congratulations to the Diverse Solutions team and to Zillow. This is a perfect pairing of two of the most innovative companies in the real estate tech/data space.

Second, when I saw this news I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. One of the reasons I have so loved Diverse Solutions on my site is that they gave me what I believed to be the best tool out there to search for homes in my market. In part, I’ve been competing with Zillow (not really, they’re huge. I’m tiny) But really, I have been. Now they’re together? Zillow, who makes money (as all of the third parties do) selling agents on upsells for $X per month?

But.

Has, Zillow just has purchased sleeper cells on thousands of sites around the country?

1. Is this the next step in the evolution of Zillow becoming/replacing/supplanting the MLS? Maybe. Maybe not.

2. What will Zillow do with my users’ data – the search history, contact information, etc?

2a. Presumably, if I keep using Diverse Solutions to power my real estate search page, I’ll have to update my site’s privacy policy saying that Zillow is likely to start farming my users’ information. That will suck.

3. It would have been nice to have been given a heads-up.

4. Listings, and listing data are a commodity . Everyone has them. I’ve benefited by google indexing the MLS listings found on my site, but I’ve never depended on it. I generate unique, relevant, and occasionally good content. Anyone can get listing data.

5. If Zillow can use this as a back door to get more MLS data on their site, bully for them. There are some real risks in the MLS world right now.

6. See #4. Those depending on real estate search for their SEO are now SOL. It’s the evolution/consolidation of the tech space, and that’s ok. Real estate is about real estate representation – used with technology appropriately. Technology without competent representation and interpretation is merely cool tech.

Update 4 November 2011: Brian at 1000 Watt has one of the best, un-hyperventilating analyses I’ve seen yet. I still think my sleeper cell and defense contractor analogies hold water though. Time will tell.

7. This reminds me of defense contractors who acquire other firms in part because the smaller firms already have the security clearances. Getting employees security clearances one by one is expensive and time consuming; buying a successful, smaller firm that already has the infrastructure and expertise in place is a much smarter move.

In this game of chess, Zillow’s just made a master stroke.  

As I have told my clients for years – If you don’t own it, it’s going to change . I don’t own Diverse Solutions. I’m merely a paying customer. I don’t own Zillow. Not even a share. I have no say in what they do.

I don’t know how I feel now that I’m contributing to Zillow’s success.

From a purely selfish standpoint:

1. Will the product improve? How soon?

2. Will the cost increase?

3. Can I remove backlinks to Zillow if I choose? Will they link to me?

I like and appreciate what Zillow has done since their inception. I just don’t know whether I want to be in bed with them.

*I miss David G & Drew.

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Charlottesville has a tremendously active online community that has a tendency to take it offline into real friendships – both personal and business.

Two of my Twitter lists:

Charlottesville people (most of whom I’ve met)

Charlottesville media (who are quite the active community)

I’d love to see any other Twitter lists …

This is a decent starting point for finding clubs and groups in Charlottesville.

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When you talk about your market or your peers, do you say, “no one is using it…” or “no one is using it yet”? Yet implies inevitability. If they’re going to use it, it might make sense to get there before they do.

That is how I choose to implement technology for my business and my clients. For example:

- I use Basecamp for project/transaction management because it’s simple and benefits my clients. Same as with floor plans.

- I’ve tested QR codes and have found that while they are cool, and somewhat functional, the critical mass in Charlottesville doesn’t yet grok them.

- The interactive real estate statistics package is pretty useful – and will be more so once they get all the data right.

My criteria for using new technologies:

1 – Will it benefit my clients?

2 – Will it make be better at what I do?

3 – What’s the cost?

4 – Does replace or supplement something I’m already using?

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There are at least six methods of home valuation out there right now; I know that my customers and clients are going to use the ones that they find; my challenge in advising them is to put these valuations in context and either demonstrate their respective accuracies or most likely, prove just how wrong they are. And why.

- Trulia’s Estimates – (automated) – “Trulia has jumped into the home value game.” Now that they’re here, so what? While the Trulia Estimates are only in San Francisco right now, presumably they’ll be making their way nation-wide.

After years of watching competitors’ failures and successes in providing automated home values to consumers, Trulia is now launching Trulia Estimates into open beta, claiming consumer demand drove them to add this feature. After quietly tweaking the site to make way for the Trulia Estimates (like changing the location and size of the large map for search results), the company is now offering home value estimates in the San Francisco Bay area which just happens to be their back yard.

Over one million off-market addresses are now available for public viewing in the city. Trulia Estimates pulls only from public record data rather than a third party source and the site allows homeowners to claim their home and update features which ultimately will have an impact on the Trulia Estimate for that address in real time, Trulia told AGBeat.

- Zillow’s Zestimates – (automated) – Most people know about these and recognize that (at least in Charlottesville) zestimates just aren’t accurate.

- Realtor.com – (automated) – offers valuations, but you have to register first. And likely be contacted by a local Realtor. And there’s no way to request the information via your Realtor. (that I can see)

- The National Association of Realtors’ Realtor Property Resource (RPR) – (automated) – - used only by Realtors; its Automated Valuations stink too, in no small part because most Realtors don’t yet use this potentially valuable tool.

- County/City Assessments – (human) This is the value tax assessors use, no more, no less. These values look backwards rather than forwards and as such (IMHO) do not necessarily correlate to market value.

- Appraised Values – (human) the value determined by an appraiser (most often hired by the bank). This is often fairly accurate, but often is not due to the shifting market, competencies of the various appraisers and where the appraiser is coming from (non-local appraisers generally don’t provide very accurate appraisals; they don’t know our market)

- Fannie/Freddie Appraisal banks -

… Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began collecting appraisal information for any property for which they own the mortgage. Because F&F buy more than 90% of the mortgages on the market, the Uniform Appraisal Dataset will essentially become a nationwide database of property appraisals.

- Market Value – (human) as determined by a ready, willing and able buyer and a ready, willing and able (non-distressed) seller in an arms-length transaction. This can be the toughest, mainly because it’s emotional, fluid, made with often-sparse data and has a variable the others don’t really have – people.

Right now? Pricing a home in the Charlottesville market can be an impossible task that rattles and confounds experts who possess most of the appropriate and relevant human intelligence; I don’t see yet how AVMs are going to be any better.

Prime example: I called my mortgage holder and their automated valuation for my home was 20% high.

When evaluating all of the metrics out there my conclusion is this: All AVMs suck. But one day, they might not suck so bad.

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The NYTimes * noted a few weeks ago

In the last five years, full-fledged adults have seemingly given up the telephone — land line, mobile, voice mail and all. According to Nielsen Media, even on cellphones, voice spending has been trending downward, with text spending expected to surpass it within three years.

Email is still my preferred method for communicating long-form communication, for emailing offers and Contracts, HOA packages, etc. But communication has changed is absolutely changing. I’m texting a lot more, texting clients before calling to ensure they have time, Skyping much more frequently, texting via Google Voice (because I can text from the browser).

I learn a lot by observing my daughter and her friends; there is no technological communication besides Facebook, texting and the occasional phone call. I have to text her to check her email … both of which come to her blackberry. Many of my clients find me on facebook, twitter, linkedin, etc.

All of these varied and important communication methods lead to at least one consequence – I need to be able to store and search all forms of communication. I need a pensieve.

So now I’m testing Greplin* – “The Search Bar for your Life” – a tool/service/program/I’m not sure what things are called anymore so I’ll go with “solution” … if they could integrate searching texts and Google Voice, my tech communication search life would be complete. For now.

If you want in invite to Greplin, please contact me.

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I wrote about FiberLight in August of 2010 about the prospect of more fiber coming to Charlottesville. Internet is the new infrastructure.

This can only be good for the Charlottesville real estate market. More internet infrastructure qualifies as a “good thing” … particularly if it’s privately done.

My question: where in Charlottesville and Albemarle will they be laying fiber?

Via press release:

FiberLight Albemarle County/Charlottesville Network Featured In February 3 Event

(Charlottesville, VA) – FiberLight, LLC, one of the nation’s leading providers of mission critical, high performance fiber optic networks, announced today it will feature its newest high capacity fiber optic network, a 46-mile direct connection from Culpeper, VA to Albemarle County and Charlottesville, VA, during a special event on February 3. The new high-count, underground network will use enhanced fiber for lower latency and will provide a direct connection to Culpeper and Washington, D.C., home to FiberLight’s 500+mile multi-ringed, optical network.

The event, which is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Thursday, February 3 at the Omni Hotel in Charlottesville, will feature speakers from FiberLight, the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and Albemarle County. Michael P. Miller, CEO & Founder and a native Virginian, will talk about the importance of making private investments in the state’s next generation infrastructure. James Hilton, VP and CIO for the University of Virginia; Ann H. Mallek, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Albemarle County; and Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris will also speak during the event.
In 2010, FiberLight completed a 130-mile diversely routed network system, which provides underground capacity between Culpeper, Virginia, Ashburn, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The project, which took just over 12 months to complete, involved boring through some of the toughest terrain on the eastern seaboard including 44,000psi quartz infused granite.
“As a company, we believe it is of vital importance to provide state of the art fiber access not only to Albemarle County and Charlottesville, but to the growing business communities of Virginia,” Mr. Miller said. “At FiberLight, we are experiencing an overall increase in demand by enterprise, government, education, healthcare and high bandwidth application users seeking secure, scalable transport for the purposes of data replication, disaster recovery and connectivity to the Internet. With our state-of-the-art critical infrastructure, we believe we will be able to continue to meet the growing needs of this region.”
ABOUT FIBERLIGHT
FiberLight is a premier provider of mission-critical, high performance networking services including Ethernet, Wavelengths and IP, SONET, and Dark Fiber optical transport network solutions. Solutions are provided to telecom carriers, government, enterprise, content providers and web-centric businesses. FiberLight wholly owns its 500,000 fiber-mile network in key growth areas and offers robust metro networks in 21 metros within Georgia, Florida, Washington, D.C., Texas, Virginia and Maryland, as well as Wide Area Networking options at layer 1, 2 and 3 to major commercial hubs throughout the country. Visit FiberLight at www.fiberlight.com.

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Heck, Greene County’s not even there.  Of course, they “only” represented 10% of all homes sales in the Charlottesville MSA last year.

Median sales price and volume of single family, attached and condo sales for Charlottesville MSA in 2010:

Note: the less metropolitan/urbanized/populated areas are less accurate. That will change.

For now, “But until Zillow gets a lot smarter, I don’t recommend making it a trusted bookmark.“

In time of course, they will get better. It’s best not to underestimate those with piles of money and lots of smart people.

Thanks to Dan Greene for pointing this out; I’d seen it a few years ago but forgot all about it.

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I’ve long thought (and most importantly, so have my clients) that Diverse Solutions, the providers of my home search tool, put together the best search for homes tool in the real estate industry. They’ve been testing a new version for a while now, and here’s the result:

Try it out for yourself – search for homes for sale in the Charlottesville area.

What’s new?

• New language in the search box
• The map will now update as the criteria changes without the need to click view results
• The map now shows properties immediately once a location is specified
• Clicking on a city marker now adds it to the locations and shows properties
• Added a variety of new design elements
• Isolated and moved the Save as Favorite button

I know that people want to search for homes without signing up, without being contacted by a Realtor, etc. etc. I don’t spam, I don’t contact without permission (I do send a “thank you for registering” email) and I want you to enjoy using this tool as much as I appreciate your using it and contacting me whenever you’re ready.

What does the beta mean for you? Hopefully it will be:

- Faster

- Cleaner

- Easier to use

Comments, feedback and suggestions are welcome.

New:

Old:

Now, as soon as they release a version that allows for me to provide search results based on radius and polygons, I’ll buy every developer at Diverse Solutions a couple cases of fantastic beer made right here in Central Virginia.

You choose -

Starr Hill or Blue Mountain

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In two days, I have already seen how it will transform how I interact with clients and my work/life flow.

For my buyer clients, the ability to have MLS sheets without needing to print them out is simple and brilliant. MLS on Mac > PDF > Dropbox > iPad. Sweet.

For my (potential) seller clients, being able to have a conversation about the listing process with the iPad as the facilitator will be simple and functional.

First, I asked for help on Twitter and on Facebook and received outstanding tips, “Nice. (My wife) got me an iPad. Now taking recommendations on best apps and practices. ”

Within a day, I realized that everything had changed:

Top 5 Observations:

1 – I’ll be able to leave the Macbook at home. Eventually.

2 – The Cloud is crucial. Google sync, Dropbox and Evernote between all my devices. Brilliant. I just hope the interwebs never go down.

3 – I don’t foresee getting rid of the laptop anytime soon. For involved work – real work – property analysis, video, photo editing, writing and assembling well-researched blog posts – the laptop is (so far) irreplaceable.

4 – There’s an app for that. Usually. And the .99 add up. Quickly.

5 – The iPad has changed how I work. And I look forward to evolving with it.

Update: Engadget has a great post covering some of the best apps and accessories. I’d love to see a study showing how much revenue the iPad generates in ancillary and accompanying purchases. They’ve created an economy.

(Update: I hate Apple - they are preparing three versions of the iPad 2).

For those of you interested, these are some of the first apps I have installed:

- Google Mobile - Must have

- Box.net

- Dropbox - Must have

- Evernote

- Docusign - Must have - if I could mark up Contracts on this, it would be nearly perfect. Alas, I still need my laptop. Unless I’m missing something

- Zillow - Must have

- 1Password – - Must have

- Realtor.com - Must have

- Twitter

- WordPress

- WSJ – a freaking brilliant app. I can’t get morning print delivery where I live, so this makes my annual subscription worthwhile.

- NYTimes

- BBC

- Tweetdeck

- Twitter

- Friendly Plus (for Facebook)

- Flud

- Flipboard

- CNN

- CNBC

- Angry Birds

- Smurfs

- Star Walk

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It’s been five days since I switched and while I miss the simplicity of my Blackberry – it does email and phone calls extremely well – So far I’m happy that I decided to buy the Droid Pro.

Here’s why I switched:

• I’ve wanted an iPhone, but AT&T coverage in the greater Charlottesville area stinks. I need my phone to work. You know – the part where I can call somebody – and Verizon has the best cell coverage in the Charlottesville area. The Phone Call is not (yet) Dead in my world.
• The keyboard & the size. Finally, an Android phone with a keyboard + it’s a reasonable size. The Droid X is massive, and while beautiful, doesn’t fit well in my pocket.
• My clients are using iPhones and Androids, and Blackberry just can’t compete. Yet.
• The apps. These are my apps, if you’re interested. The breadth and depth of apps just aren’t available on the Blackberry.
• Two apps of note:
• • The Zillow App
  • The Realtor.com App
• I can search the Charlottesville MLS much more efficiently now. Rather than the dumbed-now mobile version, I have full access.
• This is crucial.
• A better camera. I do a lot of mobile uploads, and the 5 meg camera, while not the 8 meg on the Droid X, is better than the 2 meg on my BB.
• Qik – I’m going to be testing this soon. (more on this later)
• Skype is a bit better on the Android, I think.
• I wanted something new. I knew the Blackberry, but it was tired, and I love playing with new things. Sue me.

I know this – visitors to RealCentralVA.com are using mobile devices* – and I’d like to encourage more.

1 – iPhone

2 – iPad

3 – Android

4 – Blackberry

5 – iPod

6 – Samsung

* They’re so much more than phones.

** Don’t tell the TSA that I have a Droid.

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Now, what’s next?

- Mobile Barcode Scanning. It’s up 700% year over year. Notice the barcode on my signs? We haven’t rolled them out quite yet Nest-wide, but are testing them.

- Mobile anything and everything. iPads, Blackpads, Android OS, etc. People are becoming more mobile, and using their laptops and desktops (I haven’t had a desktop in 15+ years!) less and less.

Although broadband use is increasing it has been outstripped by mobile connections. The ITU estimates that there will be 5.3 billion mobile subscriptions by the end of 2010, of which 3.8 billion will be in the developing world. It says that more than 90% of the world’s population now has access to a mobile network.

Mobile is huge. And will be huger.

- Video. In every format. MLS’ still are limiting. I would love to do video walkthroughs of all of my listings – they’re useful and practical and buyers and sellers (more buyers) want them. But … MLS’ politics – led by fearful Realtors – are the hang-up.

- More information. More data. More need for good Realtors to interpret and guide buyers and sellers through the process. RPR is a start. But there are a lot of impressive tools coming out of the woodwork right now.

- More and better mapping. Innovation is everywhere. On the day I was finalizing the second post in this series, the guys at 1000Watt posted about Sharemymap.com. And the week before I finished this post, Estately posted about their new school search. And the week before that, Redfin released clustered results. This stuff fascinates me because it make for a better search experience for consumers and will eventually trickle its way to the Charlottesville market. (and Nest released a new version of our search, and my Charlottesville home search just got faster)

- Lifestyle search – I want to find and live in a neighborhood with other people around my life stage – with kids, near a park, 20 minutes to one spouse’s work, walk to a coffee shop and a library, ride a bike to the other spouse’s work, close to a Trader Joe’s or a Whole Foods, with utilities that are below average in a well-built house, priced lower than the assessed value that is oriented to allow for solar panels, with high speed access, close to the Downtown Mall on a cul-de-sac.

- More content creation for and by real estate people – across the spectrum

- Geo. Location. Geo Fencing. Whatever you want to call it, real estate is about location, location, location. Now, so is the internet.

What I want in the future:

- MLS technology and politics to be sorted out (note to inlookers: this is impossible. There are >800 MLS’ and 1 million Realtors. Get them to agree. Please) Data Standards, too, please.

- Platform-agnostic everything. I don’t want to worry about my MLS not quite working on my mac, my clients’ PC or my blackberry or Droid or iPhone.

- Better data and analytics. I want to know what’s happening in the real estate market – what people are searching for, what they’re buying, how many foreclosures are out there, how many people are buying houses with ceramic tile, how many with gray-water systems, how many off-the-grid and more. Basically, I want it all. Now would be good.

- BG. Beyond Google. Surely the world is going to evolve a bit beyond Google, right?

- Facebook . Somehow, much to my chagrin, much of the world is going to go through Facebook. What if Facebook created an MLS of sorts? Allowed consumers to market their homes themselves? And tied in with Mint?-

But don’t miss the huge shift going on.

In the past, to find a business, we’d go to Google and type something like “Palo Alto Sushi.” We’re heading toward a world where you’ll use location-based services to do the same thing.

That is a HUGE disruptive threat to Google.

Limitations – mainly political:

- MLS – 500 characters for public description of the property but seemingly unlimited for the comments to the agents?

- Branding & the MLS. I don’t do marketing videos as much anymore because the single greatest director and source of traffic – the MLS – has an obscene aversion to branding. For example: if I put a video up of a property I’m marketing and use my primary youtube account (the easiest way to upload and share video) I can be and will be flagged for “branding” because the consumer can find me via youtube.

- MLS – other websites can resize photos. Why can’t you?

- MLS – Realtors still take crappy, often misleading, photos. There is no excuse.

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I have been reflecting on the past five years as I am marketing the home of some of my first international clients. They moved from the UK to Crozet (their house is for sale and is shown at the end of this post). When we were meeting a few weeks ago, they were looking at the faxes I used to send them, discussing the websites I used to put up for them – photos of neighborhoods, areas, houses, etc. and we were talking about how things have changed and evolved since then.

When we put my clients’ house on the market a few weeks ago, they were looking back at their files from when they built five years ago. I wanted electronic signatures then. I knew they would come. It’s a shame they’ve taken so long to get here. These are simple in that they allow me and my clients to operate more efficiently than ever. We just ratified a contract with zero printing and ink. All parties signed electronically. This is not the norm, but it will be.

- Paperless transactions – Docusign – No more driving 20 or 3000 miles for a signature. No more faxing or scanning. Simple, efficient. Brilliant.

- I’m also looking at Echosign again due to their new social identity feature:

EchoSign, the web-based electronic signatures and signature automation service, is launching new functionality today that allows users to use their web identities (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google) to e-sign contracts or other documents.

Now, signing a contract is the same for my clients three miles away as it is for those 3,000 miles away.

Limitations:

- Banks. Lenders. Attorneys. Realtors. Not understanding that an electronic signature is legal. – Fear. Of doing something differently. In 2011, I am strongly considering not recommending lenders who don’t get this – if their processors, their underwriters etc think that electronic signatures aren’t “real” I am going to have a very difficult time working with them.

Now I need to figure out what I want in the next five years …

Part One – Real Estate Technology I wanted Five Years Ago is Finally Here – Interactive Floorplans
Part Two – Real Estate Technology I wanted Five Years Ago is Finally Here – Real Estate Video
Part Three – Real Estate Technology I wanted Five Years Ago is Finally Here – Paperless Transactions.
Prologue – What’s Next?

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I have been reflecting on the past five years as I am marketing the home of some of my first international clients. They moved from the UK to Crozet (their house is for sale and is shown at the end of this post). When we were meeting a few weeks ago, they were looking at the faxes I used to send them, discussing the websites I used to put up for them – photos of neighborhoods, areas, houses, etc. and we were talking about how things have changed and evolved since then.

The second technology that is “here” is:

Video - at the time, I was taking hundreds of photos and putting them on private, password protected websites for my out of town clients using .mac sites. It was relatively simple, but vastly more time-consuming than taking a quick 10-minute HD video and uploading it so my out-of-state or -country clients can see the house. In fact. I sold a house this year to tremendous buyer clients by virtue of a 15 minute video I did as their buyer’s agent.

Now I’ve moved from taking dozens of photos and am doing videos.

“There is a distinct and important difference between the “marketing” videos we do and the “walkthrough” videos I do for my buyer clients. The former are good fluff, presenting the house in the best light; the latter are “real” – kinda shaky, not always perfect lighting or framed shots, but they are real – looking in closets, laundry rooms, up at the ceiling fans, out the bathroom window (a suggestion of a client), down the street …“

- Data storage is becoming a non-issue. And there is more data than ever.

- Bandwidth is less of an issue than it was a few years ago, but will remain a challenge for some. The US still lags behind much of the world in internet connection speed .

- This story is already out of date. I started it early last week and these two relevant stories have popped up.

- Buying Mobile Broadband? Don’t! (Until You Read This)
- New tech may bring near-gigabit speeds to DSL… someday

Video is the “next” thing but will be is limited by the MLS politics. Once again, technology is not the enemy, it is the facilitator. The enemy are the Realtors. Consumers don’t care about MLS politics. We Realtors need to accept and understand this. Not doing so comes at our own peril.

Now, video is ubiquitous and more consumers now have and use high speed internet:

But, it is important to recognize that only two thirds of Americans have broadband access at home:

The adoption of broadband internet access slowed dramatically over the last year.

Two-thirds of American adults (66%) now have a broadband internet connection at home, a figure that is little changed from the 63% with a high-speed home connection at a similar point in 2009.

Challenges to more significant video usage by Realtors and real estate agents:

- Video has to be COMPELLING. Boring video doesn’t work. I’ve found that video without an accompanying transcript does not work as well as video with words. Some people at work can’t watch videos.

- Branding & the MLS. I don’t do marketing videos as much anymore because the single greatest director and source of traffic – the MLS – has an obscene aversion to branding. For example: if I put a video up of a property I’m marketing and use my primary youtube account (the easiest way to upload and share video) I can be and will be flagged for “branding” because the consumer can find me via youtube.

- Youtube has a 15 minute limit on video length, and 14 minute HD videos often are larger than their 2 gigabyte limit.

- The Consumer Doesn’t Care about Realtors’ squabbles about branding. They want to see everything, and if they don’t get it from Realtors, they’ll get it somewhere else. See: Part One.

Part Two – Real Estate Technology I wanted Five Years Ago is Finally Here – Real Estate Video

Part Three – Real Estate Technology I wanted Five Years Ago is Finally Here – Paperless Transactions.

Prologue – What’s Next?

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

I have been reflecting on the past five years as I am marketing the home of some of my first international clients. They moved from the UK to Crozet (their house is for sale and is shown at the end of this post). When we were meeting a few weeks ago, they were looking at the faxes I used to send them, discussing the websites I used to put up for them – photos of neighborhoods, areas, houses, etc. and we were talking about how things have changed and evolved since then.

This started as a blog post. And became a longer post. Then a long post. And now it’s a series. For the next four Wednesdays. This series really started with my ability to track new construction for buyer clients who were out of the area when ground was broken, and then throughout the building process.

None of the following is groundbreaking, but it’s all functional and helps me do what I do best – represent my buyer and seller clients. Revolutionary technologies are cool, but they often aren’t viable. I work with a lot of international and out-of-state buyers who are relocating to the Charlottesville area; I am constantly seeking out tools that will enable me to help facilitate our relationships and transactions. Five years ago, I knew what I wanted, but couldn’t offer due to technological limitations.

What I knew I wanted five years ago (and have today):

- Interactive Floorplans - see the floorplan and the inside of the house – at the same time! Photos are great, videos are better, both combined with a floorplan are best. I can’t tell you how many

Interactive Floorplans: For years, I’ve wanted to have an interactive floorplan that showed the floorplan and pictures of the rooms at the same time. Simple, right? The technology was sort of available five years ago, but now it’s functional, economically viable, and most users’ browsers and computers can handle flash. Have a look and let me know what you think. This is a link to a floorplan, and I’m embedding it after the jump. (provided by Floorplan Online; here’s a nice review of them)

This is a dead-simple implementation of something I’ve wanted for years, and I’m thrilled to offer it. I’m still working through how I use it, but it’s coming along.

Which page is more detailed?

Google (they’re not “there” yet, but they will be)

Zillow

Realtor.com

Trulia

Nest Realty Group

The Charlottesville MLS – for some bizarre reason, MLS email links expire.

The public side of the Charlottesville MLS

- Floorplan for 425 Grayrock Drive
- Floorplan for 5341 Brookwood Drive
- Floorplan for 5053 Brook View Road

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

I rarely share “industry-type” stories here, but this post speaks to how I anticipate my clients will be searching for homes in the next one, three, five years. And it’s a pretty damn cool future.

My goal as a Realtor is to maintain my edge, my understanding of the market and my value proposition for my clients through representation.

And where does the Google fit into all of this?

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