Move, Inc., which runs Realtor.com for NAR, will begin offering "enhanced commercial search functionality" on the site later this year.

Working with commercial-real estate data provider Xceligent — which owns CommercialSearch.com — the site will begin to offer "amplified commercial functionality" including

hundreds of thousands of commercial listings Xceligent has aggregated into CommercialSearch from multiple sources including: its fully-researched markets, hundreds of MLSs, CIEs (Commercial Information Exchanges) of every market size, and the majority of the top 50 companies who provide commercial listings in the country.

Besides commercial listings, Realtor.com will also offer data on those properties via Xceligent’s CDX research product, which uses "hundreds of researchers proactively gathering information on every commercial building in a market."

Read more about it in this NAR press release.

Congrats on the raise.

According to NAR’s 2013 Member Profile, Realtors are doing much better this year — earning 24.6 percent more in 2012 than they did in 2011. (That’s two years in a row that Realtor’s income rose.)

Essentially, fewer Realtors + more total sales = more money for each Realtor.

Here are some specifics to mull over:

In 2012…

• Median gross income for a Realtor was $43,500 (up from $34,900 in 2011), on a sales volume of $1.5 million, spread over 12 transaction sides.
• Realtors with 16 years or more experience had a median gross income of $57,300.
• Realtors with two years or fewer experience had a median gross income of
  $9,700.
• Property managers managed a median of 49 properties each, the highest number ever recorded.
• The median business expenses for a Realtor were $4,900 — 37 percent of which were vehicle expenses. (Note to grammar nazis: Yeah, yeah.)
• 24 percent of residential brokerage specialists had at least one commercial transaction side in the last year.
• The typical agent had one transaction side involving a foreclosure and one involving a short sale.

See all the details in NAR’s 2012 Member Profile.

Quipping that "This may technically be transportation legislation, but at the end of the day, it’s a jobs bill," Governor Bob McDonnell signed Virginia’s new transportation funding bill — a bill Virginia Realtors helped pass.

The new law eliminates the 17.5-cent per-gallon gasoline tax (at the pump), replacing it with a 3.5 percent tax (at the distributor). This helps compensate for higher-mileage vehicles, which use less gasoline but still put the same wear and tear on roadways.

The bill also adds a new six percent Diesel tax, raises the state’s sales tax by 0.3 percent, raises the motor vehicle sales tax, and adds a $64 per year tax for hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles.

The plan is expected to raise about $880 million a year by 2018 (or $3.5 billion over five years) much of it earmarked for transportation.

According to a report from Richmond-based Chmura Economics, over the next five years the new funding provisions are expected to…

• raise more than $1.8 billion for road maintenance
• provide $660 million for new construction
• fund public transit to the tune of $509 million
• provide more than $256 million for intercity passenger rail (including extending passenger rail service to Roanoke)
• "Generate additional revenue for Virginia’s airports and seaports"

Chmura estimates that new roadway construction coming out of the bill will generate $8.1 billion in "economic activity" and allow the state to pay for 10,133 jobs from 2014 through 2019.

Meanwhile, new transit and rail spending will generate $1.4 billion in economic activity and provide 2,925 jobs per year from 2014 through 2018.

(Caveats for the cynical: The report doesn’t clarify what "economic activity" means, and it doesn’t specify what kinds of jobs will be created.)

Further, according to Chmura, the transportation plan will "Generate annually between $272 million to $335 million in Northern Virginia and $172 million to $226 million in Hampton Roads for regional transportation priorities."

That will be done via increases to sales and hotel/motel taxes in those areas. (A considerable grantors tax was in play, but VAR fought to reduce that.)

You can see details about the plan at the state’s "Virginia’s Road to the Future" website.

Earlier today, all Virginia brokers received the following notification:

In early March 2013, the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation (DPOR) issued clarification about its real estate licensee transfer policy that created concern about when a transferring licensee is able to practice at his new firm. In response, VAR has been consistently working with DPOR staff and Virginia Real Estate Board members on a solution that will allow licensees to transfer seamlessly to a new firm.

We are pleased to report that the Real Estate Board took action today that will allow licensees to begin their affiliation with a new firm immediately. The Board approved a streamlined transfer process that allows a licensee to begin work at his new firm on the day the transferring agent and new broker sign and submit a fully completed application to DPOR.

The new transfer application process will require the following:

• The new broker must affirm that she has checked to make sure the transferring agent’s license is active and has not expired. She can do this by going to DPOR’s License Lookup page (http://www.dpor.virginia.gov/LicenseLookup/) and entering the agent’s name.
• The new broker must agree to assume supervisory responsibility of the transferring licensee, effective as of the date the new broker signs the fully completed transfer application. The new broker also affirms her belief that the licensee is of good character and competent to practice real estate.
• The transferring licensee, by signing the transfer application, certifies that he has notified his old (current) firm that he is leaving.

Submission of the application and fee must occur immediately, and the new broker and transferring licensee should ensure the application is fully completed prior to submission to avoid any unnecessary delays in processing. If there are deficiencies in the application, the licensee and broker will be notified and will have ten (10) days to correct the application to avoid possible disciplinary action.

The streamlined transfer application and accompanying guidance document are available on the Real Estate Board web page at http://www.dpor.virginia.gov/Boards/Real-Estate/.

We have posted information on this new process on our website, including a video explanation featuring VAR Legal Counsel Blake Hegeman. CLICK HERE to view the webpage and video.

VAR is very appreciative of DPOR staff and the Real Estate Board’s receptiveness and efforts on this solution. Your local associations were also critical to this effort.

The New York Department of State recently told real estate agents there that — independent contractors or not — you can’t give yourself some highfalutin title to make yourself sound more important than you are.

Calling yourself a president, vice-president of this or that, protector of the innocent, or whatever constitutes deceptive advertising according to New York law.

Quoth Howard Rubin and Goetz Fitzpatrick in Real Estate Weekly:

When dealing with puffed up titles, the letter opinion makes clear that unless the agent is a corporate officer or member of a limited liability brokerage company or partnership, they cannot have any title that infers that they hold such a position.

Therefore, a Vice-President has to be a Corporate Vice-President of the Corporation and a Managing Director has to actually have the job responsibilities of a Managing Director.

In fact, that can hardly ever be the case in New York, where real estate law prohibits anyone selling real estate under another broker from holding a corporate management position.

Further, the state has warned brokers that they could also be subject to disciplinary action if their agents start getting, shall we say, above their station.

As the New York Observer reports:

It’s unclear how many New York City brokers will be affected by the ego-deflating decision, but it’s almost certain to cause tumult in the status-obsessed industry.

True, this doesn’t affect Virginia — but we will soon perform the rite to summon Blake Hegeman and get his opinion on titles in the commonwealth.

You may notice that we don’t run certain types of stories very often here. For example, "Experts predict…" pieces. Why not? Because expert predictions about economic matters are nonsense.

Take a story appearing today on DSNews.com, "Experts See Risk of a Housing Bubble Resulting from Fed Policies."

Reading the story, you learn that a recent poll by Zillow found, essentially, that about half of the "real estate experts" thought the Fed’s policies posed little or no risk of a housing bubble, and about half felt there was "moderated to high risk" of a bubble." (Technically, 4% said no risk, 48% said little risk, and 48% said moderate to high risk.)

Put another way, flipping a coin would be just as accurate as asking a "housing expert."

Then it went on to ask those experts to predict housing prices out to 2017. ("A cumulative rise of 22.3 percent is forecasted [sic]," if you’re interested.)

As if.

In the March/April 2005 Commonwealth, with a headline of "No boom, no bust, no bubble," we cited four big-league economists — including Michael S. Miller (chair of the DePaul University’s department of economics) and then-Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan — saying there was no housing bubble.

If experts can’t see the volcano they’re standing on, I really don’t expect them to be able to tell me what’s gonna happen in three or four years.

Bottom line: That’s why you’ll rarely see prediction stories appear here — unless they’re particularly interesting.

It took a while, but Jon Stewart finally got around to doing a segment on the Mortgage Electronic Registration system.

VAR launched two Realtor image commercials today.  The spots have received great feedback so far. We are testing them first in the Richmond market and hope to continue to air around the state in the near future.

One is focused on the Realtor pledge and the other on what a Realtor can do for the consumer, both resulting in the Realtor logo/brand being a promise.  So… Look for the R…Look for the Realtor promise.

Check them out (bet you’ll recognize some faces too) and let us know what you think!

More Than A Logo

Look For The “R” 

We’ve been saying for a long time how important the housing industry is to the economy — how every home sold has a major and positive effect on industries far and wide.

Well here’s a great chart that makes that point crystal clear. It shows housing starts vs. the unemployment rate.

Unemployment began to skyrocket around January 2007, peaking about two and a half years later. Since mid-January 2009, though, it’s been going down.

Meanwhile, one-unit housing starts peaked around January 2006, plummeted for about three years, and only started rising again in early 2009 with the rest of the economy.

Bill McBride, whose chart this is, offers a more detailed explanation in "Housing Starts and the Unemployment Rate."

You can see both the correlation and the lag. The lag is usually about 12 to 18 months, with peak correlation at a lag of 16 months for single unit starts.

If you sign up to support a Virginia branch of the Young Professionals Network by Wednesday, May 8, you’ll get a free account with the real estate-focused Wellcome Mat video-sharing site.

That’s it: Say you support YPN just by filling out a quick form (kinda like a petition), and get a free account with a very cool service.

First, what’s YPN?

Don’t be fooled by the name. The “Young Professionals Network” might be more aptly called the “New Realtors Network.” It was launched by NAR in 2006 as a way to give new Realtors “the opportunity to connect with each other and build a stronger link to the industry.”

Essentially, its goal is to get new Realtors and pros to work together, and help get those new folks involved with the profession a few baby steps at a time.

For younger and newer Realtors, it’s a great opportunity to network and to learn from the experience around them. For those who have been in the business a while, it’s a way to help new folks ease into the profession — and an opportunity to mould them in your image. Just sayin’.

It’s since expanded to eight local associations in Virginia, but not (yet) to VAR itself. Some folks are hoping to change that.

That should be enough to get you to support it. But wait, there’s more: Wellcome Mat.

WellcomeMat bills itself as a video-sharing site for Realtors — like Vimeo or YouTube, but designed with real estate in mind. It’s got all sorts of features to make it easy to use video in your listings:

• It’s easy to manage all your videos from anywhere
• It has one-click MLS compliance (it removes branding)
• You have more control over how your videos look on your site (hint: less cheesy than YouTube)
• You get clear and simple links for yard signs
• You can track traffic — see who’s viewing your videos

Just do it

Go here: https://var.wufoo.com/forms/ypn-virginia/

Fill out the form.

When you submit the form you’ll automatically get your code for the free Wellcome Mat account.

If you have a Facebook account, post to the Virginia YPN’s wall and say “I just signed up to support VAR’s YPN! Click here to do the same: https://var.wufoo.com/forms/ypn-virginia/”

That’s it. Go!