For all Charlottesville agents, buyers and sellers
Read this post from a real estate consumer's perspective. When I market a home, I assume that the first visitor to my website, the MLS, etc. will be my seller client. When I look at MLS photos I want to see the front of the…
MLS questions answered
Belatedly answering Michael's questions - 1. Listings are important content, but they’re very specific or, to be buzz worthy, long tail. Blogs are more general. I’ve seen very few blogs engage with listings in a way that’s interesting. Rather, the successful blogs present overviews (statistical…
Even more about Days on Market
There is frequent discussion about Days on Market data and how that relates to a property's value and marketability. Real estate appraiser/guru Jonathan Miller describes his approach to the Days on Market. If you are a Realtor, MLS person or buyer or seller, you would…
How vital is internet access?
Inspired in part by this post at the Center for Realtor Technology comes this week's (probably month's) poll - How Important is Internet Access in your next home? 99% of my clients deem internet access to be an absolute, non-negotiable necessity, on par with needing…
The MLS Coffin – one stake at a time
And this is a big one. When I was at the Virginia Association of Realtors Legislative conference a few weeks ago, I sat in on a presentation that touched on the NAR MLS working group on which I had the privilege to serve. At the…
Where do you search for homes in Charlottesville?
Excellent post today from Kris Berg about the varied places one can search for homes. Frequently even my savvy home buyers are surprised that not all homes are listed in the MLS. Kris does an extraordinary job pulling them all into on place. Locally, I…
Two things
Flippernation, Episode 3 The iPhone. Apple does it again. My only consolation is that Cingular's service in and around Charlottesville is inferior to Alltel's. More on the iPhone at engadget and gizmodo. How much longer can MLS' ignore Mac OSX and code their products solely…
One of the things about Google I don’t like
With all the talk about Google's winning the battle of real estate search, the thing that irks me the most is the consensus that their victory is inevitable. Without competition, complacency reigns. Witness the fragmentation and loss of relevance that MLS's are experiencing. I'm not…
Zillow steps it up
Zillow! And may become the de facto National MLS. Greg at the Bloodhound has an extraordinary analysis. 1. The speed with which the real estate blogosphere has analyzed this is phenomenal. 2. Most real estate agents still have absolutely no clue about what Zillow is,…
An intergalactic MLS
This is what I have been doing in Chicago for the past several months. (pdf) A shared, "intergalactic" real estate information database, with extensive records for every property on the planet, may serve multiple listing services of the future, according to a paper prepared by…