Housing Starts up (national news)K Hovnavian sees high cancellations (national with a local impact)Design by fire truckSuburbs versus fiber rolloutEcoMod gets some good press (local)PMI will be tax deductible next year!
Date Archives December 2006
Marketing integrity
Does marketing with the word “integrity” really cause consumers to believe that that particular agent has more integrity than the ones who don’t market with the word “integrity”?
Charlottesville Realtor and Marketing Stats
Continuing my ongoing and inconsistent series on the perceived “agent bubble” …Of the top-20 Realtors (based on # of transactions) in the Charlottesville market, only one is not involved with either condos or new construction. (#2 is “Non-MLS Agent)413 have had at least 5 sides.460 have had between 1 and 4 sides.About 350 have not had a single transaction so far this year.226 have more than 10 sides.Side: either a closed listing or a closed buyer-side transaction.In my opinion, selling at least ten sides a year should be the minimum when selecting one’s representation. Regarding marketing with photos:There are 1,979 Active properties on the market today as of 12/18/2006.*70 are flagged as having no photo…. 1524 are flagged as having more than one picture – a huge improvement over last year.Only 169 have a Virtual Tour.
Carnival of RE is up
At Seattle PI.It’s been so long since I last submitted to the Carnival, I forgot that not all posts get selected. So, thank you very much!
Poll results
As of 17 December, 2006 – these are the results.56% of all voters are either “Curious Consumer” or “Active Buyer or Seller.”39% of all voters are either “Real estate Professional” or “Related Real estate field”These results are better than I had hoped for, as they show me that more readers may be prospects that fellow real estate professionals. This gives me an opportunity to educate more people and potentially connect with more prospective buyers and sellers in the Charlottesville area, which has become a goal of this blog…. The more everybody knows – Realtors and consumers alike – the better my/our profession will be. Related posts:Why blog?Blogging’s expectations (it’s local)I took the following screenshots a few weeks ago – Where are my readers coming from?Of the readers in Charlottesville, how are they connecting?
DNS issues
I have apparently been having DNS issues with my main site, jduncanrealestate, for about 36 hours now. This is extraordinarily frustrating, as I just switched my mail to go through Google and now this. My transition to my other site, provided by the excellent Ubertor is going to have to happen much sooner than anticipated. And that’s just what I have been doing for the past five hours.
What do you tell those who bought six months ago?
A new construction development in Albemarle just reduced prices on a few remaining townhomes in increments of $25k and ~$40k. The same models sold six months ago for significantly more than new models are currently being sold for* – in some cases $20-$40k more than new ones’ asking prices. In effect, all surrounding, similar properties have been theoretically devalued. Related reading*I hate ending a sentence with a preposition, but sometimes it’s necessary.