How About a ZebraCast?
February 28, 2007 | 2 Comments
I thoroughly enjoyed hosting the 31st Edition of the Carnival of Real Estate. I also enjoyed doing the podcast interview about the CoRE with David Gibbons over at Zillow. You can hear the podcast here, hosted courtesy of Mike Price of MLPodcast.
Podcasts are something I have considered doing on the Zebra. I like the format, I have the technology, and it seems like something that might serve to supplement the written posts on the blog. The biggest question I have to answer is, “is it worth the time and effort?”
So I have to ask you, dear Zebra Reader, would you listen to a ZebraCast, and if so, what would you like to hear?
Let me know, I really would like some input from readers as I consider the creation of a ZebraCast.
Putting the Internet in a Sling
February 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Just about everyone knows the story of David and Goliath. It is the epitome of the underdog achieving victory against all odd. Americans just love underdog stories, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that our fledgling little Republic was one of the biggest historical underdogs when it attempted to get out from under the thumb of the British Crown. I am reminded of the plight of the underdog numerous times each basketball season as I officiate games in which one team seemingly has little or no chance to defeat its opponent. Every year, there is more than one upset, and an underdog team gets to be the big dog for at least one night.
Every story of the successful underdog has one element in common– the equalizer. The equalizer is that “thing” or “things” that works to the advantage of the underdog. When the underdog is able to take full advantage of the equalizer, the underdog has a much better chance of succeeding. In the case of colonial America, one equalizer was the fact that the British were fighting a war thousands of miles from home making logistics difficult. For many basketball teams, the equalizer is sometimes good coaching, discipline, or a particularly difficult home court advantage. For David, the equalizer was his unwavering faith coupled with a well-chosen stone. All of these underdogs were able to use the equalizer to their advantage and achieve victory.
There are similar underdog battles going on in real estate markets around the country. Every day, there are agents and brokerages competing against each other for listings and buyers. Sometimes, underdogs find a way to come out on top. I have heard agents and brokers lament the fact that they lost out on a listing to another agent with less experience, or lost market share to a smaller brokerage. “How can this be?” they say, “it doesn’t make sense.” What those agents and brokerages are ignoring is the equalizer. The greatest of the real estate equalizers, the one poised to have the greatest impact on markets is right there in front of them– the Internet.
The Internet has become the great equalizer in real estate because it is allowing underdog agents and brokerages to compete on a level never before seen in real estate markets. Traditionally, agents and brokerages had to advertise heavily in print publications in order to attract listings and buyers. Print advertising is much like the sword of Goliath– big, expensive, and cumbersome. Print advertising can become very expensive very quickly, and the ads are physically limited in the amount of information that can be conveyed to customers. While this type of advertising can be effective, its limitations, especially expense, means that agents and brokerages without big budgets find it difficult to promote themselves through print.
In contrast to historically traditional forms of advertising, the Internet provides an attractive alternative. The Internet is much like the leather sling and stone carried by David. Internet advertising is relatively inexpensive, efficient, and nimble. The Internet allows agents and brokerages to reach not only the people in a given market area, but also people who may be interested in a market area. The reach of the Internet is literally world-wide. Internet advertising such as agent and company websites also allow for engaging a customer on a much more intimate level than what is possible through print or radio or television.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of the Internet for underdog agents and brokerages is that it can be analyzed down to the tiniest details, and changes can be made instantaneously in many cases. If an agent or brokerage is finding that people aren’t spending much time on a site viewing multiple pages, it is easy to make small changes that have a big impact. This type of flexibility isn’t available with the other forms of advertising.
The underdog agents and brokerages who are able to use the the Internet to their full advantage have the best chance of being successful in today’s real estate market. The Internet serves as an equalizer amongst agents and brokerages in the perpetual competition for business. With a little faith, determination, and the Internet in a sling, the Davids of real estate stand a great chance of achieving success in the face of the mighty Goliaths.
[tags] real estate, realtor, charlottesville, virginia, marketing, internet, web 2.0 [/tags]
Carnival of Real Estate #31– Welcome to the Big Dance
February 26, 2007 | 19 Comments
The Real Estate Zebra is proud to host the 31st edition of the Carnival of Real Estate. Being that this blog has a little something to do with basketball officiating, and the fact that the NCAA basketball tournaments are just around the corner, I decided to divide the best posts into three groups, two semifinal groups and a championship group.
Since basketball games are officiated in crews of three, I divided the best posts into three “crews.” The first group are the posts worthy of selection for the first semi-final game. The second group are the posts worthy of selection for the second semi-final game. The final group is the cream of the crop, the posts that are worthy of selection for the championship game. I then selected one of those posts to be the Lead Official (or post) for the Championship.
So, without further delay, here is the crew for the First Semi-Final:
3) The Zillow Blog wrote a post about the shrinking American family and the growing American home, leaving us to wonder what people are doing with all this new found space.
2) Nina of the Queercents blog posted an interesting interview with the founder of GayRealEstate.com that covers the emerging real estate niche market of the Gay and Lesbian community.
1) Josh Dorkin of BiggerPockets gives readers good advice about what to do when they want to rent a property, but the potential tenants are less than stellar.
The Second Semi-Final Crew:
3) There aren’t many blogs out there that cover the real estate land market. TheLandJournal.com fills that gap in the blogosphere and gives readers advice on how to handle that rural land they have been holding onto.
2) Mike Price of Mike’s Corner gives real estate professionals a little help when it comes to dealing with SEO and how to avoid SEO companies that prey on the ignorance of real estate professionals when it comes to SEO. Make sure your BSD is working.
1) Lisa Dunn of Real Sage Advice offers a very thoughtful post dealing with the very difficult and emotional subject of deciding how to address the housing needs of an elderly parent or loved one.
The best posts make up the Championship Crew:
3) Maureen Francis of miOaklandCounty.com introduces people to her “lasso”– the reverse offer.
2) Peter Comitini tackles the oft-covered topic of proper pricing and marketing of homes, but does it in a well-written and presented way.
And the “Lead Post,” the only one worthy of tossing the ball for the Championship, in the 31st Edition of the Real Estate Carnival:
1) Kris Berg of the BloodhoundBlog, who wrote a masterful piece about the ABC’s of Agent Hiring.
There were plenty of posts to choose from, and I think I did a pretty good job of picking out the best of them. Truth be told, it was much easier to pick out a winner than to pick out the best posts. Kris’ post really stood out this week. Congratulations to her and all of the other posts featured in this week’s edition of the Carnival of Real Estate. Be sure to get your posts in for the 32nd edition of the Carnival, hosted by the Salt Lake Real Estate Blog.
[tags] real estate, realtor, carnival of real estate [/tags]
Charlottesville Real Estate Firm Playing Monopoly on Wintergreen Mountain?
February 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment
A reader of The Zebra directed my attention to an article in today’s Daily Progress about a lawsuit filed against Wintergreen Resort and local Charlottesville real estate firm, Roy Wheeler Co. The lawsuit apparently alleges that the recent partnership between the two constitutes a monopoly. This is quite a hefty allegation.
I suppose there are some who will view the claim as having some legitimacy, and there are those who will say it is just a bunch of sour grapes from a company that is struggling to compete. Without actually reading the complaint, it is tough to say which scenario is the more likely one. One thing that is apparent from the article, however, is that Mountain Area Realty is committed to pursuing the case as far as it will go. My favorite quote from the whole article is from Mountain Area’s attorney, C. Allen Foster. The article quotes him as saying,
“We’re going to duke it out,” he said. “They’re going to spend umpteen-jillion dollars. And I guess my client is going to spend umpteen-jillion dollars too.”
After all, isn’t that what it’s all about, anyway?
[tags] real estate, realtor, charlottesville, wintergreen [/tags]
Becoming a Real Estate Photog
February 22, 2007 | 1 Comment
Recently decided to upgrade the quality of our real estate photography. To that end, I decided to purchase a new Canon EOS Rebel XTi Digital SLR. It is becoming apparent, to me at least, that with the power of the internet to display numerous pictures at high resolution, real estate photography is going to become an essential part of the real estate skill set. I have spent the week trying to learn as much as I can about the camera and its features in an attempt to maximize it’s benefit to our listings. The education process has been interesting. I have come across a few good sites that cover real estate photography, but it is also becoming apparent that real estate photography is a woefully under-served market.
As of yet, I haven’t had the opportunity to use the camera for pictures of a listing, as soon as I do, I will share. For now, it is fun and educational simply learning about photography in general and real estate photography specifically. I always like to stretch my brain whenever I can, and learning a new skill like real estate photography is a perfect exercise.
[tags] real estate, realtor, charlottesville, virginia, photography, real estate photography [/tags]
Zebra Hosts This Week’s Carnival
February 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment
The Zebra is the host of this week’s Carnival of Real Estate. The submissions have already started rolling in, and I can’t wait to begin the judging. It should be fun, so be sure to submit your posts by the Sunday deadline, and then make sure to check back on Monday and view the results.
[tags] real estate, realtor, charlottesville, carnival of real estate, blogging [/tags]
Help a Blogger Out
February 16, 2007 | 2 Comments
I registered with ActiveRain a while back. I think it is a great online community of real estate professionals. I like the fact that they encourage blogging. The only thing I haven’t been able to figure out is how to sync The Real Estate Zebra with my blog on ActiveRain. Consequently, I haven’t done a whole lot with my ActiveRain blog. I would prefer not to have to copy, paste, and repost everything I write.
If anyone has any solutions to this situation, I would be much appreciative.
DOM Gaming– The Intentional Foul of Real Estate
February 16, 2007 | 4 Comments
There has been some talk again recently about Days On Market (DOM), and the ways in which it may or may not affect transactions, and the lengths to which agents will go to “game the system” and manipulate the DOM. I read a post about it on BloodhoundBlog, and Jim Duncan covered a change in the DOM manipulation penalties for one MLS to which he belongs. Both posts deal with the practice of agents using various techniques to make the DOM for a particular listing appear lower than it actually is.
This discussion reminds me of a perennial discussion in the officiating community– intentional fouls. As long as I have been officiating, intentional fouls have always been discussed as part of pre-season rules meetings. For those who don’t know, below is the definition of an intentional foul from the National Federation of High School Sports Basketball Rule Book:
An intentional foul is a personal or technical foul which neutralizes an opponents’ obvious advantageous position. Contact away from the ball or when not making a legitimate attempt to play the ball, specifically designed to stop or keep the clock from starting, shall be intentional. Intentional fouls may or may not be premeditated and are not based solely on the severity of the act. A foul also shall be ruled intentional if while playing the ball a player causes excessive contact with an opponent.
The intentional foul rule becomes most important at the end of close ball games. If you have ever watched a basketball game, you may have seen a close game in which the team that is losing begins fouling the team that is winning in the hope that the winning team will miss free-throws, thereby giving the losing team an opportunity to reduce the lead. The losing team is intentionally fouling the winning team. The fouls, however, are usually not intentional fouls by rule. This is a legitimate and accepted tactic. The losing team has simply decided that risking the foul penalty is worth the reward of winning the game. Of course, the rules also have a penalty for intentional fouls. That penalty is much more harsh, as it should be. This penalty is what keeps teams and players in line– most of the time.
The gaming that goes on with DOM is a similar situation. Agents have decided that the reward of resetting the DOM of a property by allowing it to expire and then simply re-listing it in the MLS (i.e.– a potential sale), is worth the risk of other agents discovering the true history, or at the worst, incurring a fine like the one mentioned in Jim’s post.
Personally, I don’t see what the big fuss is about when it comes to DOM gaming. Personally, I don’t view the issue as a matter of ethics, good or bad, right or wrong. To me, it is a lot like fouling in basketball. It is merely a tactic that comes with an associated risk. It is something of which all participants should be aware.
First of all, the DOM is not made public, so the public is not being defrauded in any way. In every MLS that I have ever seen, there is usually more than one method of discovering the true history of a listing, and many MLS’s have automatic safeguards in place to make it even easier. The wool is not being pulled over anyone’s eyes. Well at least not the eyes of anyone smart enough to know the way the system works. If there is an agent out there who doesn’t know how the system works, quite frankly, that agent deserves some wool.
It appears that the MRIS is following the basketball example, and has decided that DOM gaming falls under the category of intentional fouls. It has increased the penalty so as to hopefully deter agents from utilizing what it feels is an unfair and inappropriate tactic. Other MLS’s are free to do the same. Rather than simply talk about DOM gaming and how unfair it may be, make rules that address it, and then enforce those rules. It is amazing how easy it is to deter unwanted behavior when the rules are enforced.
First Set Of 2007 Sales Stats for Charlottesville Area
February 12, 2007 | 1 Comment
The first month of the new year is now well behind us. Since the shine has just about worn off of 2007, it is time to take a look at the sales statistics for the Charlottesville area for January. As always, the stats are pulled from the Charlottesville Area Association of REALTORS MLS, and cover the areas that comprise the Charlottesville MSA.
January Sales 2007
January Sales 2006
Breakdown
As I expected, most of the areas are a bit behind the pace of January 2006. This isn’t surprising, given the fact that January 2006 was really the tail end of the banner-year of 2005. The only thing I found surprising was that the number of closed transactions in January 2007 trailed behind January 2004 (132 vs. 154). This is surprising due to the fact that inventory has almost doubled during that time (1879 vs. 1077 on January 30th of each year). As one would expect, this has lead to a marked increase in the Days on Market (DOM) for closed transactions. For the area, DOM has increased by 55%, or 41 days from 2006 to 2007.
Closed transactions were down in every area with the City of Charlottesville once again being the lone exception. Charlottesville experienced a whopping 79% increase in sales in January 2007. The median price decreased in Charlottesville for January, suggesting that sales are still being driven by condo conversions and neighborhood redevelopments. Every other area experienced a short fall– Albemarle -37%, Fluvanna -40%, Greene -54%, and Nelson -5%. Only Nelson experienced a decrease in the median home price, so it doesn’t appear that sellers are being hurt too bad in the wallet.
Over the entire Charlottesville area, sales lagged 34% behind their January 2006 mark (132 vs. 199), while the median price remained virtually unchanged (-1.4%) despite median drops in both Charlottesville and Nelson.
This information just serves to further reinforce the idea that the market we are currently experiencing is here to stay. As DOM continues to increase, it will become imperative that sellers adjust their thinking and price their homes to match market trends. Pricing a home with 15% appreciation over 6-12 months may not be realistic anymore, neither is the expectation of a sale in 15 days. While the market in the Charlottesville area is stable, and prices are not receding, it is something different than what many have become accustomed to, and buyers and sellers should act and react accordingly.
Obviously, we are only 1/12 of the way through the year. Much remains to be seen as the year progresses. The January numbers suggest that there are many trends worth watching in 2007.
[tags] real estate, realtor, charlottesville, albemarle, fluvanna, greene, nelson, virginia, housing statistics, home sales [/tags]
The Zebra Roams the New River Valley and Grazes the Greens
February 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I received an email from REALTOR Jeremy Hart. He is a fan of the Zebra and wanted me to check out his site and offer any advice I could. Jeremy is a fellow RE blogger located in the NRV– that’s the New River Valley for those of you who aren’t familiar with the Old Dominion. Jeremy has a great blog, as does his business partner, Aaron. Jeremy’s blog focuses on real estate in the New River Valley, and Aaron’s blog has a distinctively “green” tinge to it.
They both seem like nice people and responsible REALTORS and bloggers. They are a welcomed addition to the Zebra’s blog roll.
[tags] real estate, realtor, charlottesville, roanoke, blacksburg, blogging [/tags]
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Disclaimer
My name is Daniel Rothamel. I am a licensed real estate agent in the Commonwealth of Virginia and a member of the National Association of REALTORS. As such, I adhere to a strict code of ethics and all laws with regard to equal housing, which is reflected in the content of this blog. My broker is Strong Team REALTORS, 86 Joshua Lane, Palmyra, VA 22963; (434) 589-5800. My VA Real Estate License number is 0225 077325. All of the opinions in this blog are mine, unless otherwise noted.
