Date Archives November 2006

Links for 13 November 2006

Condo Buyers Take Developers to Court Over Failed Promises – I wonder if we’ll see any of these in the Charlottesville area.What to do when a Builder Offers to find you a loan – Read the whole thing with an extremely critical eye.Helping bloggers license content.UVA’s new nanotechnology center – Wisldorf Hall – will help cement our area’s status as a leader in this area of development, and likely will encourage some people to move to our area (Hint, hint 🙂 ).  Surprisingly, finding information on the burgeoning nanotech sector and Charlottesville is somewhat challenging, but there are a few results in Google Scholar.

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We’ll all be Earthcraft soon

Friday, I met with some potential buyers who spoke to exactly what I foresee as being what is “next,” both from a want and a need perspective.A bit of research led me to this excellent interview with John Beldock, CEO of EcoBroker….  I don’t necessarily agree with the severity of all the comments, but there are some valid points regarding the speed with which homes have been built of late and the accompanying level of quality….  I said the other day in The HooK: “In the last several years, people had gotten away from the ‘buying smart’ mentality and were just buying,”Change that sentence around a bit – In the last several years, people had gotten away from the ‘builders smart’ mentality and were just building whatever they could, as fast as they could.Not surprisingly, none of the EarthCraft builders in Charlottesville market are “production” builders.  Waldo has collected a few useful links.Can homes with these offerings be built in a dense environment?What will Homeowners’ Associations’ response be to solar panels?Solar power is becoming more affordableA look at alternative energy and moreHow to green your heatingA lot of the green “trends” are simple common sense.

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Cracks widen in MLS dominance

I remember splitting wood when I was a kid – putting the wedge in the center of the log, tapping it in and then *wham*!…  That’s what Google did this morning when they announced their new and improved real estate search and uploading part of Google Base.  (via CRT)I’ve been wrong before, but this is another step towards the obsolescence of the MLS as we know it.  Those Realtors whose dependence on the MLS to make them successful had best start honing those skills and tidying up those resumés.Here is there target market:Google are more innovative, more focused and more able to adapt.From a post I made a few months ago:What if – Google bought Zillow?

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