Tag Archives: realtor
Lawrence Yun is Right (My take on the NAR’s Revisions)
“From a consumer’s perspective, only the local market information matters and there are no changes to local multiple listing service (MLS) data or local supply-and-demand balance, or to local home prices,” Yun explained. (business insider)
True. Ignore the NAR. Read local real estate analysis.
If you’re looking for insight into and analysis about the Charlottesville area real estate market, start here.
One Way that Real Estate Agents are Like Lawyers
The New York Times notes this regarding law schools:
“The fundamental issue is that law schools are producing people who are not capable of being counselors,” says Jeffrey W. Carr, the general counsel of FMC Technologies, a Houston company that makes oil drilling equipment. “They are lawyers in the sense that they have law degrees, but they aren’t ready to be a provider of services.”
The same holds true in the real estate profession – except in Virginia, it takes a bit less than three years (try less than 100 hours of “education”) to get your real estate license. And the state-mandated real estate exam (and Broker’s exam, too) is so mind-numbingly easy and irrelevant as to be farcical.
Expertise comes with practice, time, production and learning from mistakes. More from the NYTimes:
Realtor.com’s App Rocks – So Say I & my Clients
Say you want to know what houses are for sale in a certain, undefined area around Crozet Park.
I never thought I’d say such nice things about Realtor.com. I’ve written a few things about them over the years, and while I still have issues with their AVM and a few other things, the Realtor.com App is tremendous.
Put simply:
- If you’re searching for a home, download it.
- If you’re curious about home prices as you drive around, download it.
- If you’re a Realtor, get it .
I was showing houses in Crozet last … Continue reading…
Vetting your Charlottesville Realtor – Like + Experience =
In a couple weeks, the Houston Association of Realtors will launch a Web application that allows consumers to see which Realtors within their chosen search area are transacting business – and which are not.
… The app is based on MLS data and will be available from the association’s highly-trafficked Website Every Realtor in the market is included, there is no opt-out The app is map-based, so consumers can see who has sold what, where, over different time periods The app may be made available to MLS organizations nationwide
…In the Charlottesville area, I see geography as less of a differentiator, niches are important, but making a career as a “specialist” would be nearly impossible – there’s no way one could be solely a ” Charlottesville condo specialist” – it could be a significant component of one’s business, but the market is just too spread out … but — combine the above with the announcement(s) from Facebook yesterday Heck, now you could see how many people Like the Realtor you may be considering hiring.
…(SIDE NOTE – This also drops Facebook in the middle of the local advertising game – you YELP, you update your facebook PROFILE automatically, I can then create an Ad based on the fact that you “liked” KFC -someone pinch me, I’m still in the dream with Hedi) People are going to freak out about this and it’s a shame – Facebook does not expose YOUR data specifically – only people who you’ve given permission to as a friend will actually see your profile and I can see this being fantastic way of really keeping in touch – how many of my friends liked “Hurt Locker” for example – that’s the next step of Facebooks evolution, it makes sense. Continue reading
The Onion Speaks – About Real Estate Signs
I Wasn’t Going To Buy This House Until I Saw The Realtor’s Headshot On The Sign Have you seen our signs ? It’s about our clients and their houses, not us. Continue reading
School Values and Housing Prices – Specifically in Albemarle County
In an effort to get my head around the numbers, I have prepared the attached spreadsheet which evaluates (to the best of my ability with the data available) , the impact of the different budget scenarios and what different property tax rate increases necessary to close the funding gap.
…At this point in the process, I don’t like trying to address a budget challenge by manipulating the tax rate, but I think the public deserves some factual information about the different scenarios and how that might impact their personal pocketbooks.
…• In the best case state funding scenario , a property tax rate of 81.9 cents would balance the budget and increase ANNUAL tax payments by $146.19 for the median priced home when compared to 2009.
…1 However, the strength of the consensus is puzzling, given the formidable empirical challenges facing any homeowner or empirical researcher seeking to answer the question carefully.2 First, good schools usually come bundled with other neighborhood qualities– such as proximity to employment, shopping and recreational conveniences and neighborhood peers. Continue reading
This Should be Fun – Raising the Bar
The prevailing theme that I took away from the experience was “for the most part, we agree that the bar DOES need to be raised in real estate…but how, my what means, and by whom?” Finally, we at Professional One have decided to continue the conversation in this format and have created “Raise the Bar” radio , which you can find at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/raisethebar . We plan to kick the show off with our inaugural broadcast in early February (details to follow on Twitter), and the following guests have already graciously agreed to appear on the show:
Read more: http://p1fran.com/2010/01/rtb-on-the-radio/#ixzz0ddsqIZey Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Share Alike Raising the Bar is another reason that we at Nest have such high standards for our agents . Continue reading
Light Blogging Next Week – I’ll be in New York
I’ll be doing a session at the REBarcamp on Tuesday and sitting on a panel on Thursday. Importantly, we’ll be discussing the RPR – the Realtors Property Resource, which is a product which should give Realtors far more information on properties – which will be available only to Realtors – and will offer (hopefully) the most comprehensive information all in one place. … If you’re a consumer interested in real estate data, information and analysis, automated valuation models you’ll probably find the 30 minute demo interesting. “An incredible accumulation of data from multiple sources the in a graphical manner that really can give a listing agent a perfect snapshot of what’s happened to a property.”
Continue reading
