New Listings Now Highlighted on MLS Search Maps

New listings (first 5 days on the market) are now noted on the MLS Search maps with a blue outline around them. When you put your mouse over them, it also says "Just Listed". Happy Searching! Here is an example of a map with a few new listings on them.

I learn a lot by analyzing my web site logs. There's quite a bit of information contained in them like what search term people are using to find my sites, what pages they access and how long they stay on them, and even what Operating System they are using.

One statistic is what web browser they are using. Here is the top 5 Browsers used on my LocalLinks.com website for the first 29 days of May.

(Out of 21,492 visitors)
1. Internet Explorer 6.x - 73%
2. Firefox - 12%
3. Safari- 4%
4. Others - 3%
5. Internet Explorer 5.x - 2%

New MLS Map Search Enhancment

You might have noticed the words "Email this Map" on the MLS map search. If you click on this, it will bring up a window where you can put in an email address. What is emailed is a link to the map that you are currently looking at with all the criteria you've defined (price, bedrooms, zoom level, type of property, etc.).

There are 2 uses for this. One is that you can email someone else the map so they can see the homes you are seeing too. You can also email it to yourself. This will give you the link which you can then click and save in your Favorites. Then, you can just choose this link when you want to view the map to see if there are any new homes that come on the market. Each time you draw the map, it will display the currently available homes. This will be a big time saver as you won't need to spend time moving the map around and defining your criteria each time.

There are some other enhancements coming, including having new listings appear as a different color on the map. This should be a really cool addition and will post more info to my blog as I get more info from the vendor.

Greetings from Tennessee!

I've been in Knoxville most of this week with my daughter who is competing in the Destination Imagination Global Finals. We've had a wonderful time and are coming back tomorrow. Here are some things I've noted about Knoxville...

1. You can get a nice home for under $200,000
2. Gas costs $2.59/gal
3. People enter freeways at 25 mph and no one honks
4. It's easy to find a country station on the radio
5. Carls Jr's is called Hardees
6. They play Mayberry RFD on two TV stations
7. Deal or No Deal has about 5 spots in the Neilson Top 10 TV ratings
8. They sure are friendly in Tennessee!

Thanks to the lead of some school age children, Morro Bay is now a non-smoking beach. It is the only Central Coast beach that's non-smoking and joins 20 others statewide. Bonfires are also no longer allowed.

Beachfront property value continues to climb (at least the asking prices). A Pismo Shores condo just went on the market for $1.675 million.

Just want to say THANK YOU to all of you that dropped by my Open House today to say hi. Also, thanks for your kind words about my web site!!! - Keith

This is my 350th post to my Blog!!!

I have another new listing. A beautiful Alan Little built home in Arroyo Grande.

Lots of photos and Interactive Floor Plan at http://www.670SilverCharm.com

Pismo Beach approved the construction of secondary units for lots larger than 5000 sq feet. For those with lots between 5000-1000 sq feet, a homeowner can build a 600 sq foot unit. For over 10,000 sq ft lots, a unit up to 1,200 sq feet may be built. There are also restrictions for homes in the Pismo Heights because of concerns of having only one exit road.

Display or Not Display (your address)...that is the question

Our MLS System now allows the Listing Agent to specify if the address of a listing gets displayed on public searches. A Listing Agent can also decide if the listing is displayed on Realtor.com, MLS Search sites, etc. All the other choices defaul to "Yes" but the Display Address question defaults to "No". No surprise that I'm starting to see more homes displaying without their address.

I don't really know the benefit to a homeowner to not have their address displayed. There may be some exceptions but I can't think of any offhand. Since MLS Map searches are quickly becoming the way Buyers like to use to search for homes, not displaying the address will make the home not appear on the map. This seems like anti-marketing to me.

Most homeowners won't know how the Listing Agent answered the questions unless they searched and didn't find their home. Make sure that the Listing Agent tells you of any marketing tool they are going to exclude your home from! I think the "Display Address" question is being overlooked by most Listing Agents when they enter a listing and they are leaving it "No".

Just Listed

A spacious 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom home near Ocean View Elementary in Arroyo Grande. More info including photos and interactive floor plan can be found here www.1223Brighton.com

I'll be holding an Open House this Saturday from 1-3. If you're in the area, stop by and say hi!

Examples of Bad Marketing of a Home

It's not hard to evaluate how a REALTOR markets a listing. If you've been looking for real estate, you've probably already seen many of the following:

1. Empty flyer box - You don't want a Buyer to think your home isn't on the market anymore, do you?

2. Reduced price handwritten on home flyer - If you need to reduce the price of your home, you want to make sure you don't focus Buyers on that fact. New flyers should be printed and the old ones discarded/recycled.

3. Photos with garbage cans- Most garbage cans can be easily moved. So why would they be in a photo used to market a home for sale?

4. Photos with cars in the driveway - You're probably not including your cars with the sale of your home so you don't want them in the photo.

5. Lack of photos in the MLS - Ever search for a home and get the "Photo Not Available" or have only one or two photos to take a look at? Not good...

6. Black and white flyer - We're not in the 1970's anymore so there is no reason why a flyer should be in black and white, especially with the commissions that home owners are paying these days.

Congratulations to Arroyo Grande High School and Templeton High School. They both appeared in Newsweek's Top Schools List. Out of over 26,000 high schools, Arroyo Grande came in at #582 and Templeton at #714.

If you're looking to invest in Avila Beach, a property used as motel came on the market today. It's a block from the beach and has a single family residence, a four-plex, and 6 studio cottages. Asking price is $3.5 Million.

Ok, this isn't real estate or SLO related but I thought it was an interesting factoid.

The top 10 names for girls in 2005: Emily, Emma, Madison, Abigail, Olivia, Isabella, Hannah, Samantha, Ava and Ashley.

For boys: Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Matthew, Ethan, Andrew, Daniel, Anthony, Christopher and Joseph.

Real estate websites continue to grow

Traffic to national real estate sites monitored by Web research firm comScore Media Metrix increased 23 percent from April 2005 to April 2006.

SloCountyHomes.com has grown almost 65% over the same period (from 7,017 to 11,570 unique visitors). #10 on the comScore list was 2.2 Million visitors and that's a national site with tons of national advertising. My 11,570 visitors has got to mean that SloCountyHomes is one of the most visited local REALTOR web sites.

Knowing that makes all the time and expense I put into my website worth it. I also get a tremendous amount of return visitors to SloCountyHomes.com which means I must be providing something you like!

Orchard Supply Hardware has it's "we pay the sales tax" promotion this weekend (Saturday and Sunday). If you're looking for something for the home or yard, you might want to pay Orchard a visit!

If you've driven Santa Rosa St in SLO lateley (towards Cuesta College), you've probably seen the construction going on at the corner of Highland Dr. There was a very informative article about the Bella Montana complex in the Mustang Daily (Poly's student newspaper).

Here's a link to the article (note to the Trib: hire this journalism student to write for your paper!)

According to the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper circulation continues to decline. The biggest decline over a 6 month period ending in March was the San Francisco Chronicle which lost 15.6% of its paid circulation. But, newspaper websites saw an increase in visitors, according to the NAA.

Central Coast MLS Statistics - April 2006 Residential
New Listings - 913
Price changes - 848
Contingent - 68
Back on Market - 244
Pending - 640
Solds - 552

MLS Search #1 has been Enhanced!

If you use my MLS Search #1 (from this page), you'll notice that mapping of the homes has been added to the search results. I also configued it to show a "New" icon next to any listing that has been added or changed in the last 3 days. Unfortuantely, it doesn't distinguish between New listings and modified listings so a "New" icon may display if the Listing Agent has done something like a price change or just added a photo.

The city of Pismo Beach will start enforcing illegal vacation rentals.

Here are two pieces of info:

A PDF summarizing the Pismo Beach vacation home enforcement plan

and

A link to the zoning maps for Pismo Beach

The SLO Costco has a good deal on moving supplies. An Allied Moving kit includes:
- 30 boxes
- 5 bubble rools
- 4 lbs of packing paper
- 3 sets of glass dividers
- 36 7x11 foam poaches
- 3 rolls of 55' packing tape
- 3 tape dispensers
- 2 markers

All this for $49.99. I don't know if the Santa Maria Costco has the same product.

Gas is up to $3.76 gal for premium in Pismo Beach. We have got to be one of the highest priced places in the country! We may be the first place to break $4 a gallon.

I have a new listing at 1223 Brighton Ave in Arroyo Grande. This is a 3 bedroom home in the Ocean View Elementary neighborhood. It has a great floor plan. One bedroom is on the bottom floor with a living room area as well. There is a downstairs entry door so you can even use it as a seperate living quarters for the grandparents if you wish. Or, it will make a great place for kids too. The home is over 2200 sq feet and has views of the Ocean and the Dunes.

The pest inspection is already completed and the recommended items are being worked on as I type this.

This home will go on the MLS around the middle of this month. If you know of anyone that may be interested, I'd be happy to give them more information prior to the home going on the MLS. Asking price will be between $779,000-$799,000. Of course, I'll have a property website for it with an Interactive Floor Plan too!