Update: With the hurricane season proving to be a busy one, the website address has been changed to: Hurricane Info 08. Please check it to find out how you can help. There is an amazing group of volunteers compiling & organizing information about Hurricane Gustav, please visit: Gustav Information Center Alerts and Information Regarding Hurricane [...]

  August’s Commonwealth Online e-newsletter was among our most popular. Topping the list of most-clicked links was, well, here — varbuzz.com, but close behind was our podcast feed at varealtors.wordpress.com. Readers were also, thankfully, interested in the Code of Ethics training provided by NAR, at www.REALTOR.org/COEtraining, and they checked out our list of member discounts, [...]

The silly dedicated folks from NVAR’s government affairs staff found an… unusual way to raise money for the Special Olympics: They’re going to have a tug-of-war with a 150,000 pound Boeing 747. It’s part of an event called the Dulles Plane Pull, and the NVAR team (the Capitol Flyers) of 20 that includes some lobbyists [...]

No interior photos? No need to visit that house! Some sellers find it absurd that a buyer would have this mentality as they decide which homes to visit — they assume that if a buyer is serious, they’ll come see the house for themselves even if there aren’t any (or very many) interior photos. But [...]

If the Simpsons’ house was real…

Demand goes up, and prices go up with it. But eventually prices go too high and demand slakes off. (Then the media comes in to announce the "crisis.") But then — and this is that cycle thing at work — prices drop and demand increases again. And what do you know: More Americans waded into [...]

Several folks’ comments weren’t approved until today. I thought I got e-mail notifications of any that needed authorization, but apparently not. (And I don’t log in to the VARbuzz dashboard all that often.) So please accept my apologies. I’m gonna make sure I get those e-mails so it doesn’t happen again. Update: I was set [...]

Today I’m stealing an idea from Cindy Jones at VA Real Estate Talk, who brings up an interesting question. (To see what it is, you have to go to the poll — I say this for the benefit of those who get these updates by e-mail.) This one rides the line between a legal question [...]

I have been remiss by not writing more here. So here’s some more. Between the CREST surveys, the looming-in-the-distance remake of the VAR Web site, the potential remake of VARbuzz, and the request by my son’s school for me to help with its Web site — well, I spent a lot of time thinking about [...]

More and more people are looking to REALTORs’ blogs to decide who to hire, according to a story in the Post (which was also picked up at Consumerist). No longer must potential home buyers and sellers actually speak to real estate professionals to meet them. Instead, consumers are accessing agents’ ever-more-common blogs, social network pages [...]