– Counterparties: Your very tentative housing recovery – Summing up the recent housing reports. Or, as I said in The HooK this week, “It’s hard to know or say with confidence where we are until we have hindsight, but right now, things are looking pretty good“ – Apple’s Maps are awful, horribly bad. I use Google maps all the time to walk property – the…
The Western Bypass in 3D
Charlottesville Tomorrow’s successful Kickstarter campaign results in an impressive 3D rendering of the probably-soon-to-be-built-and-already-obsolete Western Bypass. U.S. 29 Western Bypass, Northern Interchange – 2012 Design from Charlottesville Tomorrow on Vimeo. I’m categorizing this post under both “Transportation” and “Politics” and if I could weight the categories, I’d weight it more heavily towards Politics. The one thing I can’t find on the extremely comprehensive Cvillepedia entry…
Walkable Neighborhoods Have Happier Residents
Yeah, the info graphic below is for/from California, but the data points are universal.
And, because images aren’t searchable, the three points:
– Lose Weight! The average resident of a walkable neighborhood weighs 6 to 10 pounds less than someone who lives in a car-dependent neighborhood .
– Save Money! Transportation is the second largest expense for American households, costing more than food, clothing, and health care.
– Connect! Studies show that for every 10 minutes a person spends in a daily car commute, time spent in community activities falls by 10%
Top of the Hops Charlottesville 2012
The 3rd Annual Top of the Hops Beer Fest is September 22 2012. Get tickets if you like beer. And fun. Taste the beers there, then plan a trip down the Brew Ridge Trail.
The folks from the Fest asked me if I’d write about the Top of the Hops … I thought I’d take the opportunity to ask them a few questions – (note to those in sales: cold calling works sometimes. 🙂 )
How has the Top of the Hops grown since its inception?
The attendance continues to grow each year and we have now expanded the footprint of the site slightly so we can include several additional elements: a cider garden, an import garden and a cask garden. We have also added a corn hole tournament to this year’s Top of the Hops!
What is the Story You’re Trying to Tell? (a very short one)
“What is the story you’re trying to tell?”
I was posed this question this week by someone from outside the real estate space – a technology provider who is seeking an entry into the real estate world. His question was a pointed and salient one, and my answer was this:
Answer: It depends a bit on if I’m representing the buyer or the seller, but for this example …
I’m trying to tell the story of how buyers of this property are going to be happy living here. They’re going to enjoy coming home, being with each other, their kids if they have them, and living in the house and on the property.
The story I’d like to tell is below – a bigger story than the one allowed by the MLS, the primary venue for marketing real estate listings to both real estate agents and the public. I want to tell about why my client loves living there; what the positives are, what the context of the property is, weave a story with links to surrounding participants in the story.
But.
The Charlottesville MLS limits public remarks to 500 characters. Seriously.
No, I Won’t Drop Everything
I know that every day I’m competing for business; but I also know the value of choosing the clients I serve.
<slight rant>
I don’t get it.
I got a call recently – a blind call – from someone who wanted to see a house (not one of my listings as all Charlottesville houses for sale show up on my site). She’d been looking online, driving by a few houses, calling listing agents, wasn’t from the Charlottesville area, nor did she have familiarity with the area or the market – and she wanted to see if I could find a house that suited them and see it. Right now.
Driving around the Charlottesville area looking for homes you’ve seen on the inter webs with no reasonable context whatsoever is, politely, not the most efficient use of one’s time. Context matters.
This isn’t how professionals work; I have no doubt that many, many real estate agents do jump when someone calls and wants to see a house (and that’s just not a safe practice). I choose not to do that. Time is valuable; efficient use of time is more valuable. Dropping everything is not fair to those clients who have chosen to work with me who depend on me.
The best part was this question:
“Do you work with a contract with your buyers?”
Yes. Yes I do … here’s why.
And the speed with which she sought to end the call was impressive.
Are We Looking at the Bottom of the Charlottesville Real Estate Market?
I’ve said for years that we won’t know whether the Charlottesville real estate market has hit bottom until we have 12-18 months of hindsight. We’re seeing signs – somewhat consistent signs that we might be scraping the bottom of the real estate market – and likely will for the next few years, in my opinion.
This note from a client says it well –
“Just a little story I thought you might be interested in knowing. My neighbor at — recently put his house up for sale. It was on the market a little over a week I think and is now under contract. He bought at the height of the market for 325k and I believe he accepted an offer for 320K. His house is assessed at 185K and is half the size of my place next door. I don’t know what the bottom looks like, but I am thinking it looks a lot like this. Charlottesville is indeed a different place.”