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 the housing market last month, lured by falling prices that helped send sales to their highest level since February.

At least a third of properties bought in July involved foreclosed homes snapped up at bargain-basement prices or homes sold at a loss by owners who had no alternative, according to the private National Association of Realtors.

(From The New York Times)

?

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 to receive updates. Don’t know why it’s not working.

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 and and ethical one; it’s a bit of both. Let’s have your input.

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 content management this weekend.

I love the term "content management" because it sounds so… serious. "I handle content management for VAR" sounds intimidating. Of course, all content management means (in this sense) is "Making sure that the things people write appear in the proper place(s) on the Web site."

Blogging back-end software, such as WordPress, is a content-management system or CMS. A lot has to happen with a blog, although you don’t think about it. This post will appear on the front page until it gets pushed off by a certain number of other posts. But you can also view it as a standalone entry long after it’s gone from the home page.

The system also knows that it belongs to the "August 2008" group and to the "Andrew" group, so if you decide to browse by either of those methods you’ll also see it. Ditto if you search the site for, say, the word "calliope" which appears in this post.

So that’s content management — making sure that what you write ends up where you want it.

WordPress is a CMS that was originally designed for blogging, but is not a lot more powerful. It can easily act as the back end for a major Web site. Also in the running for acting as the back end are Joomla and Drupal. They’re both more powerful than WordPress (i.e., they have more features out of the box), but have a steeper learning curve. And I don’t know which sites will require which features, so they could be overkill.

The cool thing, though, is that all three of these world-class CMSs are free. Free as in speech, and free as in beer. That’s incredible. They’re also tiny — WordPress and Drupal could fit on a floppy disk. (Joomla is the largest of the bunch; it’s a 4 MB download.)

So getting, installing, and playing with any of these systems is cheap and easy. I already know WordPress, but I feel the need to dive into Joomla and Drupal to learn all they can do. Well, most of what they can do. Because, as I commented to Ben the other day, they’re like the 1,000-piece toolsets at Sears: You can do anything with them, but that can be a bit intimidating.

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 or viral video campaigns — all of the burgeoning options that have been called Web 2.0 — to tap their expertise and get a sense of their personalities. Some meet agents who quickly feel like buddies; others go with discount brokers and don’t have any direct contact with their agent until they’re ready to put a bid on a house.

"In this type of environment the cream rises to the top," said Jonathan Washburn, chief executive of ActiveRain, a popular real estate blogging site that boasts membership of more than 100,000 real estate professionals. Traditional advertising provides limited information, he said, but online, agents "get a chance to demonstrate their actual expertise by writing about things that are relevant to the consumer."

Kinda makes you want to look at yours with a critical eye, don’t it?

My wife doesn’t think living under the iron fist of a homeowners’ association would be a big deal. I disagree. You never know whether you’ll get normal people in charge, or mind-blowingly arrogant [insert derogatory term here]:

From Frisco, Tex., we get this from the Dallas Morning News:

Jim Greenwood said he never dreamed his HOA would have a problem with his new Ford F-150 pickup. Then he received the first of three notices threatening him with fines.

"Mr. Greenwood, you’re violating a subdivision rule that prohibits pickup trucks in your driveway," the notice reads.

Stonebriar HOA rules allow several luxury trucks on driveways, including the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Avalanche, Honda Ridgeline and Lincoln Mark LT.

But most Ford, Dodge or Chevy pickups are restricted.

[snip]

Mr. Greenwood appealed, claiming his Ford F-150 isn’t much different from the Lincoln Mark LT.

"The response was: ‘It’s our belief that Lincoln markets to a different class of people,’ " he said.

(Oddly, the HOA allows Hummers — the epitome of low class, IMO. So go figure.)

The other day I saw a Papa John’s pizza-delivery car that had several partisan bumper stickers on it. That, I thought, is just stupid — you’re guaranteed to turn off a sizeable number of people who see it. Yes, the cars are owned by the employees and not the company, but you would think Papa John’s would have rules. At most newspapers, for example, reporters are forbidden to put such stickers on their cars.

When you’re associating your business with your vehicle, opinion-free is the way to go. Especially when times in Virginia are changing.

See, there are a lot of new voters signing up in Virginia. So points out a story in today’s Washington Post, which shows a pretty major jump especially in the northern and eastern parts of the state. (Login required or use BugMeNot.)

Since 2004, Virginia has added almost 250,000 voters; in contrast, Pennsylvania has added only about 45,000. And more are coming — 1,800 per week in Fairfax county, for example.

The political ramifications are obvious, of course: The new registrants are in predominantly Democratic regions, putting Virginia solidly in play for the election in November, especially considering the elections of Tim Kaine and Jim Webb, and with Democrat Mark Warner’s lead over Republican Jim Gilmore large and growing.

Many — but not all — of these new voters are recent transplants to Virginia. Others are old residents who are registering to vote for the first time. Either way, after November we may be looking at a very different commonwealth.

I’m busy planning the murder of a few thousand trees with the next issue of Commonwealth, but I knew that if I didn’t post this from Zillow I’d be in trouble.

First, the opening of the press release:

Real estate Web site Zillow.com® today announced the launch of Showcase Ads, a self-service advertising platform for local professionals interested in reaching Zillow’s audience of homeowners, buyers and sellers. With this new product, real estate agents, lenders and other local advertisers can purchase 25, 50, 75 or 100 percent of the available ad views on searches for homes within a given ZIP code, allowing them to target only those localities they are most interested in reaching with their message.

Basically, Zillow lets people ("professionals," but I suspect anyone can use it) post ads associated with a ZIP code. So if you’re a handyman on the west end of Richmond, you could pay Zillow to have your ad pop up on every search for properties in 23233.

And so on.

Now, back to clear-cutting….

When I was working for the Roanoke Times, a bear got loose from (I believe) the zoo. It was caught without incident. But one of the photographers who had been listening to the whole thing on the police scanner quipped, "I was hoping it would head over to the Salem Fair."

Bad news sells papers and gets people to tune in to the evening report.

A solid housing market doesn’t make news, but the "waily, waily, waily" of a down market can. ("Woman commits suicide over foreclosure" — remember that from last week?)

It’s a bit wearing.

Enter the Real Estate Bloggers with a post, "26 Things The Media ISN’T Telling You About The Real Estate Market."

It’s time for the media to quit all the doom and gloom reporting, even if it gets more ratings than fluff stories; for the lazy agent to quit whining that there’s no work to go after; and for everyone to realize that what we’re REALLY seeing across most of the country is simply the leveling out of a major housing boom.

What follows is a list of facts gleaned from various sources. A few are worth pointing out.

4.  Only 15 out of 50 states have shown any actual price decline in the past year. The rest still show modest appreciation in home values.

Virginia had an overall increase of home values of six percent from the second quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2008.

8.  A “boom” in economic terms means a period of unsustainable growth - with the term unsustainable being the keyword. In the real estate world, a boom market is considered one in which prices have risen over 30% in 3 years, while a bust market is one in which home prices have dropped by at least 15% over a 5-year span. By that definition, very few markets are experiencing a bust. It is more likely that prices are simply bottoming out from the big boom. (According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.)

Definitions can be tricky things. We’ve all see how terms like "bull market," "recession," even "torture" can be redefined to suit your point of view. But "housing bust" is a lot stronger than "post-boom housing readjustment."

21.  Most of the decline is seen around 2 main types of markets: weak, industrial economies that are under pressure from the struggles of the Big Three automakers; and the areas that were previously part of the biggest boom markets.

Virginia, in case you hadn’t noticed, is neither.

No one’s saying the housing market is running on all cylinders, or that there hasn’t been a pretty major decline. That’s obvious. But a little perspective can go a long way, and a little hard data can help. Kudos to the Real Estate Bloggers for giving some of each.

PS:

25.  Many real estate agents are helping to fuel the supposed ‘market bust’ by giving in to fear and worry. They believe what the media and politicians are saying and are simply giving up, using the excuse that ‘the market’s no good.’ If agents’ were out there working hard, cultivating prospects and persuading people to buy or sell, the market would show definite improvement.