MLS Search Not Working
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 -…
You’re Going about It all Wrong – Or How to Search for Homes in Charlottesville (Without a Realtor)
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…
Reflecting on Zillow’s Influence Over the Past Three Years
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…
Charlottesville Foreclosures Study sheds Light on a Surprisingly Hidden Market
Download the study (pdf) here. First things first, a huge and generous thanks to everybody in Prof. Nisha Botchwey's class at the University of Virginia School of Architecture for their efforts, and the results of said efforts. By their producing the report from which my…
Where Are the Walkable Neighborhoods in Charlottesville/Albemarle?
People want to be able to walk to stuff. My question for my readers is this - is your neighborhood walkable? Walkscore is a great resource, although it's data is not always 100% accurate. A new tool, optimalhomelocation.com (h/t Lifehacker) offers the potential to find…
Search Tool Down
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…
Why Aren’t 100% of the listings in IDX?
Because some firms don't see the benefit of distributing their listings to the widest possible audience. (hat tip: TechKnowBabble) An off-line comment in response to this post on Agent Genius sums up the argument against excluding listings from IDX very well: This is a great…
What’s a Beme?
An interesting higher-level editorial piece in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, while not written with the real estate industry in mind, has some clear parallels - Marketing 3.0 is now the science of devising and managing directed business memes: call them bemes. Bemes are…
Update on New MLS Search Tool
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…
As Promised – A New Way to Search For Homes in Charlottesville
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*…