I’m not taking a position on this argument at Treehugger but have a question:A lot of the infrastructure in this country needs to be re-built,” says Gardner, University of New Hampshire associate professor of civil engineering and director of the Environmental Research Group. “We have a real opportunity to re-build the infrastructure the right way with sustainable materials and socially sensitive designs that protect air, water, land, and human resources.”My question is – do we have the capacity, the intestinal fortitude and political will to do whatever has to be done?… Is our infrastructure, as we know it, adequate for the next 100 years? This absolutely is a real estate query – quality infrastructure and “getting places” contributes greatly to quality of life – and therefore real estate values.
Date Archives February 2008
Cool photo of Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall
Photo courtesy of Bob Travis, shared via a Creative Commons license.
Another shovel digs Realtor.com’s grave
Dustin reports:Turns out that not only is Realogy (and that means Coldwell Banker, ERA, Sotheby’s International Realty, The Corcoran Group, and Century 21) adding all of their listings to Zillow, but they (or at least NRT, which includes all of those brands except Century 21) are apparently taking some of their ad money out of Realtor.com.When will Zillow gain critical mass over Realtor.com …… Likely I’ll (and many others) post more on this later, but … wow.So far, Realtor.com’s sole advantage has been that it has all the listings; what will it be without that advantage? One might think that Realtor.com might want to announce something at least acknowledging that they’re in a competition to the death.
Seriously, green homes make sense
Sent to me by a client, this article is outstanding on a number of levels:”I’ve lived through seven cycles in the housing industry, and this is one of the worst…. They don’t want the house they went into the cycle with,” said Charles Shinn, a Littleton, Colo., home-building consultant.This is what I am telling my clients – buy a better house now…. You will thank yourself in five years when you’re either a) still living in the house and your house is more comparable to the inevitable competing new construction or b) you’re still paying lower utility bills and c) your house is just more comfortable.I tell ya, this “green home” thing might catch on – and it’s not necessarily because people care about the environment or global warming or natural resources – it’s because buying a smarter home makes sense. Despite what the WSJ says, I don’t advise clients to “go green to get your cash” – I do it because it’s a common sense approach to living.As an aside, I’d love to see our MLS have an option to search for green homes.
Thursday Links 02-21-2008
Is there a correlation between zoning and the subprime crisis?What is a short sale? We aren’t seeing that many of these in the Charlottesville area (yet).More on foreclosuresImpact fees a form of governmental support?
Even more candor from the National Association of Realtors
I thought I’d never see the day when the NAR economist wrote something like this – Based on the latest available information, my outlook is for new single-family home construction to decline for another year-and-a-half through the second quarter of 2009. …However, lower home construction activity is just what is needed to help stabilize the housing market…. A high number of vacant new homes will pressure home prices on existing homes to fall and that could result in a sizable loss in housing equity for a vast portion of 75 million homeowners in the U.S. Consumer spending can spiral downward fast from loss in equity and push the economy into a deep recession…. It’s not a pretty forecast, it’s not overtly sunshine-y, but it appears to be an honest assessment, and that’s just what we all need.One question – how many consumers are even aware of the NAR’s history of ahem – BS – analyses?
Realogy sends (more) listings to Zillow – so what?
As noted on Inman this morning and the corresponding press release:Leading real estate Web site Zillow.com today announced an expansion to its marketing agreement with Realogy Corporation that will result in approximately 700,000 total property listings from Realogy’s brand networks to be posted to the Zillow.com Web site on a daily basis.For the record, I theorized earlier this month that:Where is the tipping point going to be when Realogy (for example) decides that it’s more beneficial to just send everything to Zillow rather than the MLS?We’re seeing a variation of the above example in some markets that have large non-Realtor populations – the MLS is not as effective due to lack of participation.Zillow is competition; if only for the fact that your data could one day be better than ours.Note also David G’s response:Your Realogy analogy is interesting though probably unlikely…. Realtors would still have access to all of Realogy’s listings; the only differences being that that access would be now be free and you would also find potential clients hanging out where you find the data.IMO, the fact that Zillow will be a richer source of information than the MLS’s is a given…. Likewise, since Zillow’s databases are exposed to a much larger audience, there’s significantly more opportunity for correcting data quality issues than in the case of a closed MLS.Questions – – Could this strategy disintermediate the local MLS? (doubtful, as MLS’ still have far more information than Zillow)- Could this be the way to finally divorce the commissions?- Does the average Realtor or consumer see the potential ramifications of this?