Real Estate Trends

Real estate search engine, Trulia, is now sporting a new look and new features. They’ve recently added a Q&A for communities called Trulia Voices (though there aren’t many questions about Philadelphia real estate yet).

The feature is similar to the Home Q&A that Zillow.com launched last month.

Trulia has also added real estate guides for US geographical areas. Here’s the one for Philadelphia, which gives you a breakdown of home prices, crime stats, home age, household income, travel time to work, and community links.

Both websites show the recent trends from showcasing listings to building an engaged community around real estate transactions. Sites like these offer a great way for real estate agents to become the “local real estate expert” for their particular area.

According to RisMedia’s 2007 Power Broker Report (pdf), there were about 356,000 less real estate transactions in 2006 than in 2005.

Here are some interesting charts. The first shows the top 10 states with the most agents (New Jersey, California, Minnesota, Virginia, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New York, Georgia) read full entry

How can you tell if a market segment will be profitable? There’s no hard and fast rule that will tell you “yes, this is profitable” or “no, it isn’t”. However, researching the data on your target market can be useful.

Here’s a quick way to analyze a market if you have a geographic focus. (Note: you’ll have to do some research and crank some numbers. Most of this stuff isn’t something you’ll find just by searching the internet.) read full entry

Yesterday, I attended The Learning Annex’s Real Estate & Wealth Expo at the Javits Center in NYC. The expo has been traveling to big cities in the US and Canada for the last couple of years and has generated quite a bit of press. They’re even paying Donald Trump a cool $1 million to speak and answer audience questions. Along with Trump, Robert Kiyosaki and wife, Kim, of Rich Dad fame, Tony Robbins, and Jim Cramer were also headlining, and 72 others held seminars on real estate and wealth. read full entry

According to the new NAR $40 million ad campaign, the time is right to buy. You can see a copy of the ad as well as detailed analysis over at the Matrix blog – or you could just go straight to the parody at the Housing Panic blog.

You have to wonder what they’re thinking with virtually everyone talking about the cooling housing market and the holidays right around the corner. What makes now a great time to buy a home? read full entry

The sky is falling. Or so you’d think after reading an article from RealtyTimes about a seller who pulled his home off the market because home valuation site, Zillow.com, estimated his home to be $500,000 lower than what he was asking. read full entry

In recent articles, I’ve talked about how to Define Your Goals, Know Your Clients, and Evaluate Your Competitors. The fourth pillar of a solid marketing foundation is to know your business environment. read full entry

A recently published study by Steve Sawyer of Penn State University confirms what most agents already know – that competition is fierce. The study analyzed 12 local markets that represent 800 of the largest metropolitan areas and was based on local MLS data, interviews, and secondary sources.

The study found some interesting results. Though there has been substantial growth in each of the 12 markets, in 10 of the 12 they studied, the percentage of market share held by top firms is shrinking.

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A new white paper by Real Living called Women, Technology and Real Estate: Leveraging the Connection found the following: read full entry

Freddie Mac may say there’s no housing bubble, but the folks over at Fool.com aren’t buying it. They refer to a recent New York Times article where 2 Goldman Sachs analysts caution that home prices are now overvalued on average by 10%. And if interest rates rise just 1%, that percentage will increase to 15%.

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