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All your eggs in one basket

July 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I work with a lot of out of town clients, most of whom are considering relocation to Charleston. Many start their search very early in the process and request listing alerts that give them a very good idea of the Charleston real estate market. Sometimes they fall in love with a home well before they plan to move to Charleston.

A slightly different case this week. An out of town client has been online looking at and asking me further questions about a specific home in Charleston that he would like to purchase as investment property. His plans called for him to arrive this weekend to view it.

But just recently, if went under contract and he cancelled his plans. Then the contract suddenly fell through and his plans were back on and especially appealing was the fact that the price was reduced. But just yesterday, the home went under contract again.

Bottom line, whether you are planning to relocate to Charleston or just want to invest in Charleston real estate, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. There are lots of nice available properties, certainly more than the one you might have your eye on.

Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, relocation to Charleston 

How do you search for Charleston homes

June 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I notice that different people who are searching for Charleston homes search differently.

 How about that sentence.

Some people who are doing a search for Charleston homes are seemingly searching all the time while others just search every once in a while. Others who are interested in the Charleston real estate market simply like to have the searching done for them and just look at the listings alerts they have subscribed to.

But here is what I found to be the most interesting thing. When a client is ready to view homes, some send me the Charleston MLS listings that they most want to see. Sometimes there are a lot, other times just a few. When I just get a few listings from a client and I have to look for some additional nearby listings to show, it’s the homes that are available nearby that don’t get sent to me that I wonder about.

Why didn’t some of those houses make the “cut”. Why did they like the home they wanted to see and why didn’t they like another home. In many cases, I have actually liked a home I found more than one that was requested. Of course, I’m not the person who potentially may be buying that home but I find it to be interesting.

A penny for your thoughts.

Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Charleston home listings

A National MLS?

January 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Why are so many companies spending so much money to try and develop a National MLS. Think Zillow or Trulia who are both advertising driven, the new bird in the nest, Roost, whose business plan relies on selling listings back to the broker sponsoring the area, Point 2, a website software provider (who I have happily used for my original website for over 5 years) with the ambition but no chance for success at this idea (more at another time) and additional others who may or may not succeed at staying in business. Then there’s the old Realtor.com owned by the National Association of Realtors and operated for profit by Move, Inc.

I don’t get it. Zillow and Trulia suffer from not having all of the listings for any market that real estate consumers are searching. While they both have lots of neat web2.0 features, don’t you really want to see every available property.

Roost is taking a different approach; in exchange for getting the idx feed for a market from a broker, they will indeed have all the listings and will sell the clicks (leads) back to the sponsoring broker. They’re opening in 14 real estate markets and hope to be in 40+ within a year. 

Clunky old Realtor.com does have all the listings (except fsbo’s) but despite attempted improvements at being a user friendly site, it is still stuck in 1990’s technology. Never the less, it still has the largest percentage of online real estate search traffic.

So what gives, despite the slowing real estate market nationally, venture capitalists and other investors are spending serious money fund websites that may or may not make money but certainly don’t answer the number one need of the real estate consumer: finding all available homes for sale.

Now let’s talk about searching the Charleston MLS on a website like this using the MLS Gateway. It may not be as “pretty” or have all the nifty features of other sites but listings are updated immediately as they are entered into the MLS. If you want to see homes by price, area or narrow your search in other ways, you can. Save your favorites or request additional information. And you can view every home for sale in the Charleston real estate market listed on the MLS.

As to a National MLS, I just don’t see it happening anytime soon. What do you say? 

Don’t search for a house …

January 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment

probably sounds pretty dumb on a real estate website but …

search for an agent instead.

Here’s why. Every real estate agent can show you every house for sale in the Charleston South Carolina real estate market. If you call five different agents, not one of them has any more houses that they can show you than any of the others. So more importantly than finding a home is to find a professional real estate agent to help you with the purchase of your dream home.

I got a call the other day from someone who wanted me to show them a house. It wasn’t my listing, I asked if they had found it on my website and they had. The next question is automatic for all real estate agents, “are you working with an agent” and the answer was yes, but “she is on vacation”. Well, I take a vacation now and then (there is practically no chance that I’ll be available during 4^th of July week or Thanksgiving week) but I can’t help anyone who is currently working with another agent so I had to tell him to wait until she returned or to call the listing agent and ask if they can show the house (and I provided the name and number to him).

Because real estate has a low barrier to entry, there are a lot of real estate agents, some good, some not so good, some full time, some spare time and many part time (and basically in today’s more difficult market, many have been forced to become part time real estate agents and get a full time job to bring home a weekly paycheck).

Here’s what I suggest. If you are online, visit some websites and find some agents who you think will be helpful to you. Send an email and see who responds timely and call a few other agents and see who answers their phone (or returns the call quickly because sometimes they are talking with someone when your call comes in). Find someone you are comfortable with. If you are out driving around and visiting open houses, don’t worry if the house doesn’t fit your needs, maybe the agent hosting the open house is someone you’d like to work with.

It’s your money, it’s an important purchase, don’t trust it to the first real estate agent you come across and remember, if you aren’t working with a real estate agent who is helping you with the purchase of your home, you aren’t represented in the transaction. 

As they say, let the buyer beware. Don’t search for a house, search for an agent (and find the very best agent you can to represent you).

Read more about buyer representation. 

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