Have It Your Way

The current plethora of informational sites displaying residential property reminds me of the old Burger King slogan:  Have it your way.  If you want alerts, apps, price ranges, school districts, agent ratings, or almost anything else, it's available on the internet, usually on multiple sites.  Even though Trulia is owned by Zillow, for example, they maintain two separate sites (clearly, it's easier to be a consumer than to be an agent trying to keep all listings and profiles updated!).  If you prefer one display over another, go for it.  If you like the search parameters of another site, have that one delivered to your inbox also. Want to know what an outside evaluator thought?  Check our Squeakly report. For those who choose to search through the site www.hpearce.com, we can wrap our contact information around the property data from the MLS. 

If you go back in time (I'm writing this on TBT), clients, who were then called customers--no buyer brokerage existed yet--had to come into a real estate office, to pore over a physical book of listings. That book came out every two weeks.  If you wanted to know what had sold in the past, and at what price, that was in another book, which came out every 6 or 12 months.  Books couldn't leave the hands of a Realtor, so there was no examining the inventory in the peace and quiet of your own home.  It's amazing to me, in fact, but more people log on to our site between 5 and 7 AM than at any other time.  They certainly weren't in a real estate office at those hours!

Given all of the options, it's easy to be overwhelmed by too much information.  Most people now know that Zestimates are off by 20%, on average, and more on the high end.  It's not surprising that outdated and expired listings appear in a Google search.  That's why, according to consumer studies, most buyers and sellers want to sit down in person at some point in the process.  That's why we're here.  Call us at any time--ok, maybe not at 5 AM, although I do get emails from agents at that hour--and help us add the "special sauce" that Burger King boasted of adding to the Whopper.  We call it market knowledge, and it isn't edible, but it is good!

Even With Snow Still on the Ground, the Spring Season is Here

I just went back and looked at the past three months' worth of Trulia leads and visits to our Pearce website from Trulia.  Leads were relatively flat from January through mid-February.  They went up 11% to 20% from week to week after that; in the most recent report, they have doubled. 

Although that's only one site, and the lead time for homebuyers can be long, it's a clear indication that interest in real estate is up, way up.  And, even if some people look at houses online instead of Netflix, many of the lookers will translate into buyers. 

Winter came so late this year that many buyers could begin the process without much interruption from the weather.  Even the recent "blizzard" didn't do much to send people back inside to wait for warm weather.  And sunshine helps--not only because it makes people feel positive, but because so many houses look their best in brighter light.  Of course, we've also switched to daylight savings time, giving us another hour of what feels like daytime at the end of the working day.  Anything that promotes movement and energy will boost traffic to open houses and initiate showings.

With all that happening, sellers should be doing everything in their power to get ready for the market, if they haven't already.  Spring can be fleeting, so take advantage of it while it lasts!

We're Excited about Homesnap

The Connecticut Multiple Listing Service (CTMLS) is offering Homesnap to all of us now.  We think that consumers will absolutely love this free app, which is a cross between Zillow, Realtor.com,  and SoundHound.  That means that you can take a picture with your phone or iPad of any home you see; if it's not listed, you will get exterior and public information.  If it is listed, you will get what you would see on Realtor.com, all without having to do anything except point and click. In addition, by signing up, you can get updates every time something in your desired area comes on the market. If you sign up through an agent, it will be branded with that agent's info, and the agent will also have a record of what you're seeing.  This has the potential to make homebuying so much easier!

I've been playing around with the app this weekend, whenever it's too cold to do anything else--so I've clearly had a lot of time to spend!  I think this app will replace a bunch of others, since it combines so many great features into one delivery package.  At Pearce, we are busy training all of our agents on Homesnap, and we will soon be inviting you to come and join us.  In the meantime, you can certainly go on as a guest, and see whatever there is to see from the road, every time you have a few extra minutes.  If you're a fan of trolling on Zillow, this app's definitely for you.  I'm hoping that it will soon be available for commercial properties as well, but, for now, it's just great to have this new tool, in time for the spring market. 

New from New Orleans

Recently, I went for the first time in many, many years to the National Association of Realtors Convention, held this year in New Orleans.  Aside from sampling some great food, and looking at some lovely real estate in the French Quarter, I heard a lot about what's on the minds of Realtors around the United States.  In no particular order:

--Trulia and Zillow, while getting lots of attention, are no panacea--they are wildly inaccurate in many cases.  Although we know that their values are not too accurate, and consumers know that too, consumers don't seem to realize how many listings appear there when they are unavailable, or even sold.  Consumers do a lot of searches that turn up listings not matching our Realtor.com results.

--Technology for our industry is abundant, but often comes with a steep learning curve, or is incompatible with other programs we already use.  The Jetson-like devices I have been waiting to see are still not here.

--While the market is pretty flat for the year in most parts of the country, other places have largely said goodbye to short sales and foreclosures.  Hurry up, Connecticut!

--We have as much in the way of politics in our industry as you could ever imagine. I couldn't bring myself to get interested enough to get outraged about much of it!

--People come to New Orleans to eat.  And eat.  And eat.  And I thought New Haven was a foodie city.  It is, but it doesn't get the same tourism.  And I had no idea how many people take cruises out of the Port of New Orleans.  I guess that means I'm pretty sheltered, up here in New England!

Rent or Buy Decisions Now

The New York Times recently had a real estate section cover story about how both sales prices and rental rates were out of sight for many areas of NYC.  There didn't seem to be a good choice for someone looking to move to make.  Here, we see things as being different.  Rentals in our region are increasingly scarce.  New Haven has the lowest apartment vacancy rate in the country.  In addition, we haven't seen the wave of foreclosures that people think may be coming in our state.  If or when it does, that will mean that large numbers of people will go from being owners to being renters, for at least the seven years that they will need to wait before they can borrow again.  Where are they all going to go?

On the other side of the equation, prices for homes are low.  Very low.  And so are mortgage rates.  That makes it a good time to buy, if you believe that prices are going to rise.  In that regard, we got some help from a Trulia article, albeit a backhanded compliment.  Greater New Haven was listed among the ten cities where the number of people looking to move out most exceeds the number of people looking to move in.  It also predicted that prices would go down a couple of percent by the third quarter of this year.  BUT, it went on to say that price increases would average 5.3% per year through 2016, meaning that someone who buys a home and plans to hold onto it for five years, whether living in it or renting it out, will be likely to get quite a bit more for it when he or she goes to sell.

That seems to me to make the rent versus buy decision pretty simple around here.  It's the time to buy.