Some agents probably are.- Nubricks shows us that there is opportunity beyond the borders of the USA, and exposes (to me) a market other than our own and ChIndia.- Greg defines the “Divorced Commission,” writing more eloquently than most where the industry must go.- Mike is seeking Maverick nominations.- What can we learn from the California market?… (MLS)- Finding the story beyond the numbers.- The Difference between Good Realtors and Bad Agents.- Pat presents his thoughts on the real estate blogging community.- Dan Green offers a defense of interest-only mortgages.- Finally, Brian warns us to be vigilant on behalf of our clients.Update: I neglected to include sellsius’ great post about the Realtor.com/Zillow kerfluffle.
Browsing Category Blogging
Thoughts on working online
Off-topic, but … having to work from a backup laptop while I 1) wait for my PowerBook to be repaired and 2) wait for my new MacBook Pro (200gig hard drive!) has given me time…
A minor addition to the blog
It’s a real work in progress, but if you are in the Central Virginia region, take note of the “people who do stuff” wiki I have added…. Make it the one-stop resource for those seeking HVAC, carpenters, plumbers, etc. Is this a realistic goal? Maybe not, but if you don’t aim high, where should you aim? What’s a wiki?… is a type of website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content …So … if you know of a good contractor, plumber, etc. feel free to add them to the “Other People Who Do Stuff Page.”* Please bear with me, as this is the first time I’ve done one of these, so … there will be changes and alterations as we evolve.It’s running on PhpWiki, an open source software that is conveniently provided by my host, Bluehost. (note, my site has been very slow lately, due to what I perceive to be the consequences of renting space on a shared server.)
Monday links 10-16-2006
Reduce your energy costs and get a tax creditExotic loan programs and potential foreclosuresThe Downtown Mall shows signs of wear – from all the vehicular traffic. What a shame that the hub of the City is encouraged to deteriorate.If only more writers/bloggers (myself included) would take the time to research effectively …Hybrid fee structures and flat fee representation – there is a future in this, and I think I am going to develop this as a component of my business. Soon.Blog integrity is important. If readers question your motives, that trust, the trust that helps define blogging as different than other media, is lost.
Blogging’s expectations (it’s local)
So much so, that after more than a year of regular blogging, she and her partner were losing their zeal as daily contributors to the real estate blogosphere …Read Jim’s post. It is excellent.Second was a post at Mike’s site, a request for opinions on the national real estate “web 2.0” sites that led to this comment response:The business is, and will always remain, local and relationship based. I could come up with a list of dozens of sites that I think do a much better job of providing a good consumer experience at a local level than any national site.The same can be said for real estate blogs. Many provide an extraordinary top-level view of the real estate industry, with the occasional (not yet rare) post focusing on their local trends. Some of these blogs have moved the real estate conversation forward faster and more intelligently than anybody (at least I) could have imagined.I have noticed a recent shift in the real estate blogosphere to a more broad-based focus on national and industry-wide trends rather than local real estate trends…. As more and more information comes online, the best real estate information may be somewhat self-selecting – readers will visit because somebody else told them to…. I have found that local clients do not care so much about one’s prominence nation-wide, but they do care about how much you know about planning, infrastructure, tax bases, employment centers, schools, a property’s potential appreciation rate …… I’d bet that if 500 real estate bloggers were surveyed as to whey they continue to blog (not why they started), that they enjoy it and are passionate about what they do would be in the top two responses.
Thursday links 12 October 2006
Should municipalities provide wireless? As we become a higher-density society, this may become more and more of an attractive option.Tall buildings coming to the City of Charlottesville! Tall, at least, by our standards – 9 stories.Six great blog articlesIs Albemarle County growing too fast? A full post on this as soon as the study is released.The FTC’s release today:FTC Charges Real Estate Groups with Anticompetitive Conduct in Limiting Consumers’ Choice in Real Estate Services300 million.Three hundred million is also a discomfiting reminder of a nation that, on its east and west coasts, at least, is running noticeably low on elbow room. More humanity is stirring up more traffic, more sprawl, more rules against growth, more protests against anti-growth rules, and more of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.We are young. Nearly 250 years old. We have a lot of growing to do – in many, many ways. Are we sustainable?What will these new condos do to the property values of the Belmont Lofts?
RSS comes to the unwashed masses
Get ready! RSS is coming to the rest of the world via Internet Explorer 7. (those of us with Firefox, Macs, et.al. have been enjoying the glories of RSS for some time now) I can’t wait for the virii that make their way to PCs via RSS.Now, I just have to find some sucker willing participant to let me borrow their Windows box to test it out. :)Seriously, this will be a landmark moment for RSS, as RSS moves from an emerging technology to one that will hopefully become seamless, invisible to most and an option for information/content delivery.