Just a brief post to inform all VAR members that the Hampton Roads REALTORS® Association is collecting donations for those affected by the recent tornado in Suffolk. No matter what part of the Commonwealth you live in, please show your support for fellow Virginians in need by making a contribution through PayPal or by check.

To donate by PayPal, simply click on the orange “Donate” button near the center of the HRRA website.

Guest post from Bill Burruss, Virginia’s 2007 Accredited Land Consultant of the Year.

When your head hits the ceiling in the basement, or the kitchen, you might not sell the house. If you are wider than the door, or bigger than the closet that was converted to a bathroom, you might not sell the house. Being 6′ 5″ tall and weighing over 320 lbs in those days, awkward was the way I felt in a house. I found that I never could make the right move showing the beautiful kitchen cabinets. My female broker could do that with such grace. Once, while closing a basement window during a showing, my tie fell into an open gallon of fuel oil and slapped against my shirt. I did not sell the house and because of the smell, I thought the client (a minister) was going to walk home to Alabama. He instead bought a FSBO and stayed. When you are big, you are just BIG.

I grew up in a land family. My family was in the lumber business and had large land holdings. I had always loved the land and as a child would look at tracts with my father. The awkwardness that I showed in residential real estate during this time was never apparent in my land listings. No ceilings to crash into. No doors to get stuck in. I knew how to walk the land and how to talk about it.

Sensing that helping people buy and sell undeveloped land was my calling, I was determined to improve my land skills and make my living this way. The Lynchburg AE told me about the Virginia Chapter of the REALTORS® Land Institute (VARLI). When I made my presentation on why I wanted to join, the Regional Vice-President for my area was being moved up to Treasurer. My presentation turned out to be my installation as the new Regional Vice-President.

Being involved with VARLI has opened more doors than I could have imagined. Below is a brief list:

• Did pro-bono work for a non-profit group that lead to listing and selling the two
  most expensive commercial land tracts in this area at that time.
• Sold the land holdings for a company that competed with my father’s company.
• Worked with my ex-broker on how to sell a youth camp for her church.
• Assisted in the sale of over 50,000 acres.
• Asked to represent fellow REALTORS® as the President of the Virginia RLI Chapter twice.
• Asked to be a member of the first Virginia REALTORS® Leadership Academy.
• Served on NAR committees as the RLI representative.

Exploring farms and undeveloped land, my clothes still occasionally pick up the aroma of petroleum products, like the one my tie once fell into. But in the outdoors, my preferred working environment, being 6′ 5″ and 260 lbs has its advantages: Hunters can see my blaze orange a lot better. So instead of threatening to walk back to Alabama, my clients now hug me — especially during hunting season.

Since they raised their lending limits, many buyers are turning to FHA loans to finance their home purchases. It’s expected that FHA financing will account for approximately a third of all residential mortgages in the near future. If you’re like many REALTORS®, you’ve seen a dramatic rise in FHA interest from your clients and you’re not completely comfortable with your knowledge of FHA loans. We can help! NAR and VAR recently teamed up to produce a webcast on new FHA loan rules and requirements.

Katie Wethman, an Arlington REALTOR® has already posted a summary review of the webcast to her blog. Anthony Carr, a broker with Weichert’s Burke/Fairfax Station office, wrote us an e-mail saying, “THIS IS FABULOUS! I’ll be setting up a class in my office to review this video and have a Q&A with some lenders. Thanks for doing this. What a creative and EFFECTIVE use of technology!”

With the limits in some areas of the Commonwealth above $700,000, FHA loans are sure to be tapped more frequently than any time in recent history. Make sure you understand the special rules surrounding FHA loans by watching this free one hour webcast.

Google Maps recently rolled out its new Street Level View service in Richmond, the first city in the Commonwealth to get it. Believe it or not, a Volkswagen Beetle outfitted with a 11-camera apparatus covered hundreds of miles in the Richmond area last fall to capture street-level photos of a large portion of the metropolitan area, literally snapping hundreds of thousands of pictures of entire neighborhoods.

Here’s how it works. Go to Google.com/maps and enter a street address in the Richmond area. Here’s a search for 10231 Telegraph Road, home of the VAR offices. A dialog box pops up and you can actually see a small thumbnail of the street level view on the search results page. As in the picture below:

Then, if you click that thumbnail, you’ll open up a larger window that you can use to navigate around the area. For a sample of the level of detail you can get, here’s a zoomed in shot of the VAR sign in front of our offices:

As long as you are in street view mode in Google Maps, anywhere you see a blue outline on the street, a street level view is available. Now your clients can show themselves around the neighborhood before deciding whether or not to look at a house. That could be one fewer showing to enter into VAR’s ideal route mapping tool!

Following Daniel Rothamel’s post on REALTOR® history, NAR staff alerted us to this video chronicling 100 years of REALTORS®. Consider it the interactive Cliff’s Notes version of National Association of REALTORS: 100 Years in Celebration of the American Dream.

This week VAR hosted a meetup of REALTOR bloggers, affectionately (and geekily) dubbed BloggerCon, at the Dulles Area Association of REALTORS in Leesburg. This BloggerCon was an encore performance to our first meetup, held in conjunction with VAR’s Convention & Expo back in October 2007. The March/April 2008 Blogspotting column points you to few reviews and resources from this week’s real estate blogging extravaganza.

Matthew Rathbun, director of education for the Fredericksburg Area Association of REALTORS sings the praises of BloggerCon at ClientCentricRealEstate.

Right here at VARbuzz, Jeremy Hart reflects on his experience and even mentally marks his calendar for the next meetup of Virginia real estate bloggers.

You can listen to an internet radio show which was broadcast live from theBloggerCon, thanks to Virginia REALTOR Daniel Rothamel, also known as the Real Estate Zebra.

Here’s an interactive website with resources mentioned throughout the day.

Danilo Bogdanovic, who also attended the original BloggerCon, reflects on his second BloggerCon.

A first-time BloggerCon attendee, Brian Block, shows some love for VAR’s social media initiatives.

The executive director of the Eastern Shore Association of REALTORS, Laura Flournoy, gives her perspective.

Natalie Langford reports on her experience.

Dean Megginson chimes in.

Thanks to the thirty or so who attended! If any other participants have things to say, just leave a comment or a trackback. I’ll update this post as they come in.

VAR Standard Forms are expertly crafted and time-tested to best serve REALTOR® needs throughout the Commonwealth. They are protection for your business. Beginning with this issue, we’ve asked our special counsel Lem Marshall to regularly take a close-up look at specific portions of VAR’s Standard Forms.

Acceptance provisions in purchase agreements can cause more angst than warranted, so it’s worth a moment to remind ourselves of a few important things. When a buyer wants to goad a seller to prompt action on an offer, he will sometimes include a provision such as that found in the VAR Form 600 purchase contract:

“This…offer shall remain in effect unless earlier withdrawn until ______. If not accepted by such time, this offer shall be null and void.” The first point to note is that this provision does not obligate the offeror (typically, the buyer) to keep the offer open until the stated date and time. Any offer may be withdrawn at any time until it is accepted. Second, if the stated date and time arrive with no acceptance having occurred, the offeree has nothing to accept, and the offeror who wants to keep the deal open will need to reauthorize the offer, usually by changing the effective date and time or re-executing the contract.

In some parts of the state it’s becoming common for buyers to add, after acceptance language like that set out above, the words “at the option of the buyer.” I guess this means that the offer dies at a certain time and date if the buyer decides it does. But how does the buyer manifest this intent? How does seller know if the offer is still there to accept? Nothing but confusion and ambiguity can arise from such language, and I hope brokers will educate their agents about the danger of such provisions, and that listing agents will be alert to such silliness. Acceptance provisions can be useful, but we need to remember that once the time comes and goes without acceptance, complications can arise. Unless you’re sure about how to use them, it might be best to leave the offer open.

Sure, it’s not easy being the new kid on the block. First of all, everyone else seems to know a lot more than you do about pretty much everything. And finding your own way can be really tough. Just ask any new REALTOR®. Getting a real estate career started under the best circumstances is not for the faint of heart. There are all of those regulations, trying to find clients, and then the awesome responsibility of all that money hanging in the balance between a client’s dreams and the harsh market realities.

Market challenges being what they are, we decided to find out from a few of our own new kids on the block – REALTORS® with fewer than three years’ experience under their belts – what it’s like being fresh on the scene of Virginia’s real estate profession.

With hundreds of fair-weather agents hanging up their spurs, we honestly expected to hear a lot about how hard life can be and maybe a little of what starvation feels like. So, imagine our surprise when five hearty souls gathered around a breakfast table recently to talk about their short experience in Virginia real estate, and nary a complaint was heard. In fact, these whippersnappers seem to have a few insights into carving out a successful real estate career that we think could help more than a few old-timers.

The latest to join the REALTOR® ranks are combining tried-and-true, traditional tactics with novel twists that come from having a fresh perspective on the business.

So, grab your own plate of scrambled eggs or bowl of oatmeal and see what these newbies had to say. We bet you’ll be surprised, too…

First things first: why did you become a REALTOR®?Is this your first career…or second, third or fourth?

Karen Newins, ABR, William E. Wood & Associates, Chesapeake I became a REALTOR® because I have a friend who is probably one of the top agents from our area. I had been in the medical fi eld for 15 years. It seemed like real estate would be a good fit for me, and my friend really encouraged me to get into it.

Karen Carpenter, 1st Choice GMAC Real Estate, Staunton My mom has been a REALTOR® for two decades, and I thought it would be a great way to subsidize my family income. I got my license in June 2007.

Bonnie Field, Real Estate III Crossroads, Charlottesville I retired from the medical field after 35 years. So I was looking for something I could do for myself. After working with patients for that length of time…working with people all the time, this is a good way to continue doing that in a different way.

Curtis Butterworth, Parr & Abernathy, Hopewell This is my third career. I practiced law for 19 years and then began to preach ten years ago. I am assistant pastor at Joy Fellowship Church in Hopewell. I received my real estate license in May 2006 and established a team, TheButterworthTeam, with my son, Brandon.

Willam Kimsey, GRI, ABR, ERA Kline & May Realty, Harrisonburg I became a REALTOR® in the spring of 2006. I had been interested in real estate for more than 10 years. Real estate is about helping buyers and sellers come together in a transaction that, ideally, allows both sides to get what they want by helping each other. In negotiation language this is called a win-win outcome.

My background as a teacher and trainer in communication and conflict resolution has prepared me well to serve as a VAR ethics instructor and a communication consultant for REALTORS® and brokers. In addition to completing my GRI and ABR, I am now working towards a broker’s license.

(more…)

April fools!

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for, the winner of the first annual VARbuzz Real Estate Blog Brawl. From 60 competitors you have narrowed the field down to two, and now to one.

I am pleased to announce that FosterCityBlog.com is the victor in the inaugural Blog Brawl. Jim Minkey’s readers turned out in force to put this California based blog on top of the heap. Congratulations to Jim for a job well done.

FosterCityBlog.com will receive a link from VARbuzz for the entire year as well as a nifty image file that he can place on his blog as proof of his victory.

Congratulations also to TheXBroker for making it this far into the competition and all of the competitors. Everyone who made it to the sweet sixteen or better will also receive an image file to denote how far they made it in the competition.

Thanks to everyone who voted and for making this first ever blog brawl a huge success!

If you’re like Tony, you’re curious about what Lawrence Yun had to say to five blogging Virginia REALTORS. We have photos to share right now, but we are giving our bloggers until Thursday to write about their perspectives on the meeting with Dr. Yun and publish them to their blogs and VARbuzz.

In the meantime, you can check out photos from the meeting and expect that Thursday we’ll have five very thoughtful opinions about the man behind NAR’s housing forecasts. One post will be right here on VARbuzz, and we’ll have links to the posts of the four other contributing bloggers.