What does a good Realtor do for his or her clients?Yesterday I was walking my two and a half year old down the stairs. For the first set, she went alone, step by step by step. (there are seven, we counted) She went slowly and deliberately and she made it. For the second set of stairs, I held her hand…. Flew down the stairs, unhesitatingly, trusting my guidance one hundred percent. One day she fell down two or three stairs (she was alone). I picked her up, calmed her fears and assured her that she would be alright. A good Realtor will seek to prevent the falls and guide the path to a smooth transaction.
Date Archives August 2006
Summer reading
Now that Summer is over (school starts today!), a reading recap follows – The Long TailFreakonomicsTravels With CharleyThe Leadership ChallengeI need more time to read.
Last thoughts on Zillow
They will be a factor with which we as professional Realtors absolutely must contend…. They will have the algorithms that will get better as time goes on. They will be a factor. One thing that strikes me is this – most of the Zillow-focused discussion on Technorati is being conducted by others associated with the real estate industry. (Except of course for the fact that they were just named one of Time’s 50 coolest website.The solution?… They must recognize that they no longer have control over the data and they must determine how best to incorporate tools such as Zillow into their businesses. This poll has some interesting questions and responses about Zillow.Saying Zillow is not accurate is one thing – proving it is another. Zillow may not be the one that becomes the source for real estate online valuations, but they are certainly leading the charge. And while they may not lead in the end, they are a harbinger for the future of the industry.
Don’t Pull Posts
One of the best (and worst) parts of writing is that the author can be held accountable for each and every word written. There is no action that draws more attention to those words than pulling a post. They will always be there, thanks to the search engines, RSS readers and the like.I made this mistake once before. I hope to never do it again.
Growing in the growth areas
In spite of much of the angst surrounding BoS member David Slutzky, he seems to be the only one expressing the opinion that is lacking from the discussion (courtesy of the DP):Supervisor David Slutzky said he wonders whether master planning each growth area separately is actually impeding some of the efforts to effectively guide growth. “If it were up to me, I’d master plan all the growth areas simultaneously,†he said. “I understand the practical challenges of doing that, but the danger of doing them sequentially is you lose the continuity, of the transportation structure in particular. We must relate transportation planning to the land-use planning or we’ve failed miserably.â€Rather than look at each individual area within the County, we must look at the big picture, the picture that includes Madison, Louisa, Waynesboro and the rest.The County of Albemarle has done a good job of providing some good PDF maps of the growth areas (PDf, P. 5) and the specific segments within. I have found it most useful to look at the growth areas by elementary school district – by far the most efficient way to drill down into the specific segments of the market. (PDF)I’ve asked this question before, and ask it again -if we don’t grow in the Growth Areas, where will we grow?
Lessons learned
I had an interesting conversation this morning from which I learned several things – 1) Everything is a learning experience.2) There are two sides to every story.3) People actually read this thing.4) Perception may not be reality, but it most assuredly affects and impacts peoples’ decisions.5) The power of one voice can no longer be overlooked.6) The evolution of the power of blogs is still young.I hope to offer more on this conversation later. There is more to the story and I would love to share it.