What they’ve done here is pretty cool.

400 more homes coming to that section of 250 East will be interesting.

“The plan also features about 32 acres of open space and linear parks, a mixed-use village center and single-family homes.”

This is a prime example of why I tell my clients that if they don’t own the land around them, they should expect it to change. I wonder how many people who moved to Glenmore in 2007 knew they’d be neighbors to this new development?

The Rivanna Village project has been in the works for over a decade … I was a bit surprised to see that I’d written about it in 2005. (sadly, the Daily Progress story to which I linked is disappointingly gone).

Further, the town centers I wrote about in 2007 have not quite come to fruition; Albemarle Place is Stonefield, Belvedere doesn’t yet have a town center and North Pointe is still a couple years away.

Read the whole story at Charlottesville Tomorrow.

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In last month’s Monthly Note I asked – What do you read? One of the best responses was this:

What do I read? The sites I’ve used as we’ve considered where to move include the local newspapers and related sites — just to get an idea about the town and the issues that are important, as well as the economic health and forecasts for the area. As far as real estate specific, not so many. I opened up searches on Trulia a couple years ago to get a feeling for the houses we could afford in a couple areas. I keep tabs on things like greatplacestoretire.com, but I find them more useful in making me feel good about where I’ve chosen than helping me choose someplace out of the blue. Almost all of their recommendations are places I’d never consider for any reason.

I see it as my responsibility to educate my clients as best as I possibly can. Part of that education includes informing clients as to which information sources I’ve found useful and credible and which aren’t. (this is sort of like when I tell clients they don’t want to see a house because it’s awful)

A quick listing of what I tend to advise folks read:

– Charlottesville Tomorrow – hands down, the best source of information on Charlottesville and Albemarle transportation, growth, development news. And their archives don’t disappear.

– CvillePedia – Charlottesville Tomorrow’s Charlottesville wikipedia.

– The Daily Progress – their writing and information seems to have gotten better and more comprehensive in the past few months, although their website is an ad-ridden abomination. Install Adblock plus before you visit their site.

– RealCrozetVA – if you’re thinking about moving to Crozet, I (selfishly) highly recommend reading this. I’ve heard from many people who’ve moved to Crozet that they used the site (and many have said they wished they’d contacted me).

– C-Ville – In the absence of The HooK, C-Ville has become the only other newspaper in Charlottesville.

– Free Enterprise Forum – one of my favorite blogs. Disclosure: sponsored by the Charlottesville Realtor Association and Charlottesville Homebuilders, it has a pro-growth slant (but y’all could figure that out)

– cvillenews – one of the original Charlottesville blogs

A reader commented on my Google+ post:

Blogs: My favorite is Young House Love, and Apartment Therapy is also good (it’s probably better for how to manage a space/issue and less to do with home-buying).

And now I’m awfully curious to know what other blogs and sites my buyers and sellers read – where do you get your advice and insight into the home buying and selling process?
I’m really quite interested in this – too often the real estate “advice” my clients cite is from other markets markets and other states – where real estate business practices are very, very different. Real estate practices are highly localized and knowing the differences and idiosyncrasies matter.

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Question everything. Always.

You can search for sexual offenders in Charlottesville and Albemarle (and the entire Commonwealth of Virginia); but how do you know if the data is accurate?

Now that sexual offender data display is becoming more commonplace, how long until consumers start to eliminate areas outright because one sexual offender is nearby? What recourse do homeowners have?

Story after story shows that consumers don’t seem to mind that the big real estate sites don’t always have the most current or accurate real estate listings. Zillow is said to be a “starting point” in the process; but what if they end up being the only point consumers (wrongly) reference? It seems that many of my clients warily use Zillow, but I also know that they understand that Zillow is but one point in the research process and that all information on the internet needs to be vetted.

Sellers already care when the Zestimate for their home is absurdly and wrongly low – and they have no viable recourse to remedy said Zestimate. What recourse would homeowners have if the real estate search sites they use allow searchers to, say, filter out homes that are within one mile of a sexual offender?

What does one do about inaccurate sex offender data? It’s fairly easy for me to demonstrate how a zestimate is crap. It’s another thing for me as a real estate professional representing my clients to research the current and accurate location and then discover whether the offender is a violent offender or an innocuous one.

A study from a few years ago noted that sex offenders’ presence may devalue a home by 17%.

They find a reduction in housing prices of 17% within a tenth of a mile of an offender’s home, and find significant changes in price up to a third of a mile.

What if the referenced sexual offender is no longer there? Is Zillow (or whichever data provider, but they’re the big dog) liable?

Inman News brings this story back to the fore with their story yesterday. Sexual offender’s presence tends to elicit binary responses – either “yes, I’m willing to risk (whether personal or financial) living close to a sexual offender or no, I’m not willing to risk it. And Inman poses the question:

But even if the data is accurate, buyers might misinterpret it. Many offenders have not committed crimes that are as nearly as heinous as many might initially assume.

* If you’re a client or potential client, ask me for a story about a sexual offender in Charlottesville whose crime and presence in a neighborhood almost caused my clients to not buy.

There are nuances to data that demand more than a binary response. Is this the result that we want?

The data also could help herd offenders into enclaves, depressing home values in some neighborhoods and scaring away families with children.Research published by four professors from Longwood University in Farmville, Va., in late 2013 found that sex offenders tend to cluster together, and that such clustering increased from 1999 to 2009 in Virginia.

Read the whole story.

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Last week I asked a seller’s agent to get the download speeds from a property in a not-so-rural part of Albemarle County.

“Here is what my tenant sent: The results were: Pings 36 Download 2.89Mbps Upload 0.47Mbps

My client will not consider this property, nor will they consider 75% of the properties that they find interesting – properties a bit outside of the City with a couple acres under $500k.

Albemarle County is conducting a broadband survey (click through for the press release).

A few thoughts before you take this survey:

1 – This is just such an opportunity where this should be a City of Charlottesville and County of Albemarle (and UVA) survey, not an isolationist one.

2 – How does this fit in with the Albemarle County School system seeking to build a dark fiber network? Note it’s an “upgrade” in the budget. (and who’s bidding on and building it?)

3 – High speed internet increases property values. I haven’t found the numbers defined (yet) but I’ve heard that high speed adds $7,000 to a property’s value. In more stark terms, often the value is a binary one – in that high speed access yields a yes or no.

4 – Not having high speed internet access in rural parts of Albemarle County negatively impacts education.

5 – Why is Korea so much more advanced than the US?

6 – If a state wants to be known as the crossroads of America and to attract local, national and international businesses – and what state doesn’t? – even its smallest communities need to offer broadband connectivity via fiber to the home (FTTH).

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