And you put the load right on me…

One of the many reasons why I attended Inman Connect is to stay informed and keep abreast with the latest industry issues, social media, the transformation of the real estate business.  During Bloggers Connect first day’s session I realized that it was time to lay out the ground rules on my blog, the comment policy.

Fortunately I have not ran into any nasty situations here on the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area Real Estate Blog and just have to deal with the common nusinace of comment spammers. But it does not hurt to establish some house rules which I call common sense.

photo credit: jakedobkin
One would think that commons sense, and the principal of ethic reciprocity should be enough to avoid any problems, but needless to say that this is simply not just the way it is and rules have to be spelled out.

No, my comment policy is not as long and detailed as the Blog Herald suggests, and I prefer to lay out some simpler ground rules which are governed by the golden rule, but my comment policy should at least cover the basics. What do you think, care to comment?

Now I am ready to turn off the computer and will be heading out to San Francisco shortly.

This will be a first for me and I am looking very much forward attending these events. See you in San Francisco!

Have a Happy and Save 4th of July!

Photos by iaincaradoc

Wow, it almost has already been a year again since I have blogged about where to celebrate Forth of July in the Phoenix Metro area.

Most of the links in last years post point to updated information, however Scottsdale’s Family Barbecue will be celebrated at the Scottsdale Stadium.

photo credit: phxpma

If you are not sure where to celebrate Independence Day in the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area and looking for another 4th of July community or special event then go check out phoenix.about.com.

The Arizona Republic has also a list of events here.

There is a very good chance that the Phoenix DUI Taskforce saturation Patrols and other law enforcement will be out and around the valley this coming holiday. Needless to say who they will be targeting…So if you are going to party make sure you have a designated driver or use public transportation. Some of yo may think there is not much public transportation action going on in the valley, however the light rail is coming very soon. Having said that, RailLife.com is a great source for learning more about the areas and venues surrounding the light rail line and Nick Bastian covers the 4th of July festivities in Tempe on the RailLife Blog.

Enjoy Independence Day 2008 and be safe!

Schweiger stands for Quality - not only in Real Estate:

Online reputation management seems to become more and more important in this Web 2.0 world, especially when conducting business on the Internet and connections are intertwining via social media. A good Reputation is the biggest asset any individual or business can have, it takes a long time to build and only seconds to flush it down the toilet so it is very important to keep tabs on what people think of you.

Even if you don’t have a blog or website and your modus operandi is completely off line, people still may talk about you online.

If you haven’t set up a Google Alert which includes your blogging-identities, social networking/media user names, business name and your first and last name then I highly recommend to create a Google account to start monitoring such things.

Wouldn’t you be curious to know what other people write about you on the Internet?

Always concerned about my reputation, I set up a Google Alert to monitor myself and less than two weeks ago I got such a Google Alert from the keyword “Schweiger” and was a little bit surprised. No worries, nobody was talking bad about me, on the contrary it was a pleasant surprise.

Following this link I ended up finding good memories of a trip to Schweiger Vineyards in Napa Valley.

Being the son of a vintner, not to forget to mention growing up and working on one, I am naturally drawn to this ancient beverage and the people who make it. Especially finding a local (as in the USA) vintner with the same last name… it was just a given to go visit Schweiger Vinyards on family trip to see what the other Schweiger’s are all about. But this is a story for another time.

Now as I write this post I am still bewildered by how the internet mingles things together – luckily in this case it happened in a serendipitous kind of good way.

It is the same name, different but very competitive lines of work, and both always striving for the best Quality - Wine & Real Estate:

Nothing is more gratifying than to celebrate a closing with a Schweiger!

Bill Austin presenting Social Media at the third Arizona Real Estate Blogger Network Meetup. This video is approximately 50 minutes long and will give you a general overview of what Social Media is and how to apply it to the Real Estate Business.

Bill Austin on Social Media from phoenixrealestatelive on Vimeo.

Map based property searches seem to be what the majority of consumers currently demand. Unfortunately I don’t have a R&D budget like the folks over at Trulia to develop a map based property search therefore I have to resort to alternatives and currently the best one I have found is the one from Diverse Solutions.

The neatest thing about dsSearchAgent is that I have complete freedom of customizing maps, being able to drill down to individual neighborhoods and to selectively display available homes for sale located in individual subdivisions.

The example below is a Phoenix Neighborhood bordering Paradise Valley to the south called Marion Estates.

Another great feature I like is that you are able to receive new listings as they come on the market via your RSS feed reader. However if you still prefer email than this form of delivery is also available to you. You don’t like the sliders to change your search parameters? No problem just switch over by clicking on “Use Text Boxes” and you can enter your search criteria the old fashioned way.

Once we have completed the transition to FlexMls in 52 days, agents then will be able to upload unlimited photos and this will certainly enhance the search experience for the user.

Now go and give my new Phoenix Home Search a try! Your comments and feedback is greatly appreciated!

After discovering Twitter.com (perhaps as a result of being bored in a broker licensing class) it was just a natural progression to graduate to Seesmic. At first, I deemed Twitter.com just to be a “fun gadget” and disregarded it. My opinion of that changed rather quickly after receiving an invite to a social networking event which ended up being a catalyst for a new business relationship. Trust me, if you cannot see the usefulness of Twitter.com right away then just start twittering, you will be hooked and you’ll discover its many uses as you go.

Having said that, the next logical step was to incorporate the seesmic plugin on this blog. Seesmic is another microblogging platform, a lot like twitter. However, it incorporates video into its posting. Seesmic.com also made a plugin available for WordPress in order to be able to leave video comments.

Here is a brief explanation:

TechChrunch seems to like it:

One way I know I like a service is if I find myself messing around with it long after I have gathered enough information for a review. I’ve been clicking on Seesmic videos all night when I could have been done with it hours ago.

Yesterday, Rudy over at Trulia asked: Are video comments the wave of the future?

What is your opinion?

Recently, I have been home shopping a lot with first time buyers. Just before my trip to Austria I got a foreclosure under contract in Queen Creek where I represent my clients as their buyers agent. My buyers were pretty much under the gun finding a new home since the landlord they were renting from was getting foreclosed upon. This time, however, they did not want to find a new home to rent since they had been tenants for 14 years and my clients felt they were long overdue for home-ownership. Having their thirty day notice in hand, making offers on short sales was not an option since my buyers were not in a position to deal with long response times. “We need to find something by yesterday” is what I kept hearing from them every day since I met them for the first time. Logically we had to boil down the search for properties to REOs (Bank Owned Properties). So, for the better part of two weeks, we started to cruise almost every subdivisions in Queen Creek looking to find a home fitting their budget, needs, and wants. At first, it was very discouraging. Only one, out of approximately ten homes, we explored was in move-in condition without requiring any major repairs necessary. After 5 days intensive shopping; we hit the jackpot and my buyers settled for 2400sqft , 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath home in Johnson Ranch, which was a former builder model. Of course it had all the “goodies” including a pool with a heated in-ground spa.

At the same time, I was working with another nice couple, also first time home buyers. Whose needs were completely different. I had to shop in the exact opposite geographic area - Surprise and El Mirage, Arizona was the target area. If you follow my blog you probably have seen them on their shopping spree. Although their time frame of moving in is not as critical, they also would prefer a quicker response time once they put in an offer. So our main focus here was to find a bank-owned property in good condition. Easier said than done. Compared to Queen Creek finding a livable bankowned property in the Surprise and El Mirage area currently takes about exploring fifteen REOs to find one which is in move-in condition without any major deferred maintenance or repairs needed.

Of course the copper thieves are still active and are stealing the coils out of the AC-compressors across the valley, however there was one major difference between Queen-Creek and the Surpise/El Mirage area: Most of the repo -homes in Queen Creek had the power turned on, while none but only one out of the fifty (or so) homes in the West Valley had electricity. At first I thought it had something to do that there perhaps were proportionally more foreclosed homes with swimming-pools in lender inventories in Queen Creek. Keeping the pool-pump running helps preventing the pool from turning green, however after looking a little bit more closer into my “Pool versus No-Pool Power-On” theory I discovered that the bank-owned homes with drained pools also had the the electric service turned on. The only thing I can think of why the electricity is turned on at most REO properties in Queen Creek is most likely because of the competitive environment due to the insanely high listing inventory. But then, the inventory in the West Valley is not exactly low either…Go figure? At the end it all might have been just pure coincidence.

Apparently, I am not the only one who perceived the physical condition of REO properties in Queen Creek better. Steve Belt had a similar observation:

Subsequently, however, home condition wasn’t as bad as I feared. For whatever reason, the bank owned homes look better than Chris Butterworth found in Litchfield Park recently

Looking at a hand full of REOs compared to a huge listing inventory cannot give a clear conclusion where the “better condition” REOs are geographically located, however I find it fascinating that local real estate blogs may indicate that the overall physical condition of REO inventory in Queen Creek appears to be in slightly better shape compared to some areas in the West Valley.