Has anyone else noticed a nasty little trend emerging in their markets recently?  I have not had much experience in different types of markets - only licensed since 2004 - but one thing has been bugging me.  In the New River Valley, in 2004 - 2006, we had a really hot market and properties were moving … in 2007 it stabilized a bit, and 2008 has seen the same except in some areas.  But one thing has continued to move, and in the wrong direction.

Commissions paid.

What gives?  I’ve been feeling it in my gut for a while, and my year-end totals bear it out - year over year, the total brokerage fee I’ve received has gone down.  Last year was my best year ever in real estate, and the brokerage fee received was the lowest.  2.2%.  GULP.  I did a random sampling of twenty homes currently listed in our MLS this morning and found that of those twenty, 14 were offering 2.5% to the buyer’s agent and 6 were offering 3%.  Compare that to 2004, when, of twenty homes sampled, 12 were offering 3% to the buyer’s agent, 7 were offering 2.5%, and one was offering 2%.  I bet if we sampled every brokerage in the NRVMLS we’d find a similar trend as what I’m reporting here, and I’m wondering what people are seeing in their own markets.

The logic here seems skewed.  In a hot market, it seems sellers would be negotiating lower rates because - in part - properties would sell faster on average, and in slower markets the fees paid might be higher.
Anytime a commission is cut in order to win a listing, I as a buyer’s agent have my income reduced when I had nothing to do with the cut.  Yes - I can have a buyer sign an Exclusive Right to Represent - but I don’t offer that and so any commission that’s cut affects my bottom line.

Any thoughts on what we’re seeing?  It’s a disappointing trend, because there are many markets in Virginia where property values are falling … if others are seeing this as well, in falling markets, then some of these agents have to be gasping for air.  Are we just not defending our value to clients?  Are more and more vendors and referral companies holding their hands out (yes and yes, IMO).  Your thoughts?  What are you seeing in your market?

[Blogmaster's note: While we encourage a free exchange of views, just a reminder to readers that commissions are set by brokers and fully negotiable.]

Just finished up reading Maggie Dokic’s tale of a rental scam she experienced this past weekend.

I don’t deal with a lot of renters in my business, instead referring them solid property managers in the areas they’re looking, but I do on properties I own.  Regardless of whether you work directly with renters or not, this is probably good information for ALL of us to have in our pockets.

Safety first …

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to tell a room full of REALTORS® about blogging. Thank you to the top performing agents at William E. Wood and Associates REALTORS® for your hospitality and attention during my presentation this morning. As promised, here is the link to Susie Scott’s brand new blog. Everyone should give Susie another cheer for diving right in to the blogging revolution! And leave a comment on her blog; you know it will warm her heart!

Giving credit where credit is due, Charlottesville REALTOR® Jim Duncan helped put together the first iteration of this presentation, which can be viewed in the slide show embedded below.

| View | Upload your own

The videos played during todays presentation are also embedded below:

Blogs in Plain English:

RSS in Plain English:

Social Networking in Plain English:

Please feel free to call or e-mail me if you have any questions. Or better yet, leave a comment!

And brokers, if you’re interested in having a VAR staff member or practicing REALTOR®-blogger come speak to your agents about blogging, please call, e-mail, or leave a comment.

The questions keep coming …

“Are we in a recession?” “Aren’t we expected to make a lowball offer?” “Will we get our money back if we sell in two years?” “Won’t we make $100000 on this flip in just two months like they do on TV?”

Okay, so maybe I haven’t gotten that last question - at least not phrased like that - but everything else is verbatim. Plenty of mixed signals floating around about the real estate market, and it’s understandable that people have questions.

Making matters worse, Scott Rogers posted links to posts entitled “The Recession That Never Was Is Now Over“, and “Is Housing Slump At A Bottom?“. I point these out not because I think Scott shouldn’t have posted them, I just think that both posts make strong arguments to at least make you consider that perhaps times they are a changin’. For instance, the post “Is Housing Slump At A Bottom” makes the argument that new housing starts slumped below the one million mark in March. Historically, every time that’s happened in the last 50 years, it’s been at the bottom of a recession. It’s hard to argue with history - as a friend of mine says, “hindsight is 40/40″. Yea, she’s like me, she was never good with numbers.

I do think there are concerns that need to be addressed. Dependence on foreign oil, uncertainty overseas, among other things, compounded by a constant barrage of negativity and fear in the mainstream consciousness, have people scared. These things need to be addressed in order to begin an upswing in confidence, IMO.

One thing I DON’T understand is how we hear about massive layoffs in industries like auto and manufacturing, yet GDP is up. Wouldn’t conventional wisdom say that by laying off in massive quantities, and exporting goods and jobs out of the country, that GDP would go DOWN? In the last three years, Volvo has announced layoffs of 1000, 650 and 1100 personnel in their Dublin, VA factory, for instance - incidentally, it’s the largest truck manufacturing facility in the world. I’ve got to imagine that production in the plant slowed down accordingly, not increased … I didn’t do well in Economics, for sure, but what am I missing here?

I asked our membership staff to run a generational analysis of VAR members according to how long they’d been in the business. Interesting results:

In the business 5 years or fewer:

Pre-Boomer (Born 1946 or earlier) 6% / Boomer (1946-1964) 34% / Gen X (1965-1976) 43% / Gen Y (1976- ) 17%

In the business more than 5 years:

Pre-Boomer (Born 1946 or earlier) 25% / Boomer (1946-1964) 56% / Gen X (1965-1976) 17% / Gen Y (1976- ) 2%

In the business more than 10 years:

Pre-Boomer (Born 1946 or earlier) 35% / Boomer (1946-1964) 57% / Gen X (1965-1976) 8% / Gen Y (1976- ) 0%

It’s also notable that a whopping 75% of our approximately 36,000 members have been in the business 10 years or fewer, and thus had never before seen the kind of market conditions we’re now experiencing.

As VAR’s CEO, there are several conclusions I can draw from this data that can help direct how VAR communicates with and engages our members, as well as the kinds of training and support they might expect from us. More about that when I have a random minute to think out loud….

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.

I participated today in VAR’s second BloggerCon today at the Dulles Area Association of REALTORS(R), and man what an event. Besides the topics - which included subjects like choosing a blog platform, how to determine what features to include, and discussion about how to track where your online leads are coming from - just having the opportunity get together meet and work with such talented folks from around the state was inspiring.

I wrote a few months ago at the Legislative & Education Conference that I was impressed with what VAR was doing, and that I was a converted cynic. I mean that more than ever, and I hope you’ll find opportunities to get involved with VAR as well. And maybe we’ll see you at the next BloggerCon, scheduled for the state conference scheduled for September 24-28!

When I started blogging five months ago, I did so in hopes of:

1. creating an opportunity to more fully engage with my current and past clients,
2. creating an open platform for commentary and discussion of our local real estate market, and
3. becoming a trusted adviser on all things real estate in the Central Shenandoah Valley.

As a result of pursing the goals above, I hoped that in the long-term (perhaps after a year or so) I would see:

1. an increase in traffic to my web site
2. an increased sphere of influence
3. an increase in sales

Focusing, for a moment, solely on the web site traffic — here’s what I’m finding after just five months . . .

You’ll see that I had experienced relatively unchanged levels of traffic to my web site for seven straight months — until I began blogging. Furthermore, the increased traffic since I started blogging has been astonishing — certainly beyond my expectations.

A few disclaimers, explanations and miscellaneous thoughts:

• I have a combined web site and blog — and the traffic trend line above is for the traffic to that combined site. Interestingly, the traffic increases have existed not solely in the blog section of my web site, but in the searching section (and others) as well.
• When I began last November, there weren’t any other Realtors in my marketplace blogging. There are several more now, but I imagine being the first one out the gate may have contributed to my growth.
• I have learn a lot from fellow Realtor bloggers around Virginia and beyond about how to promote my blog — commenting on other local blogs, highlighting it in offline printed marketing materials, etc.
• In addition to increased traffic, I have certainly seen an increase in my sphere of influence — I have established many new relationships with people in my local market area.
• I have not yet seen an increase in sales as a result of my blogging activity — but given all the increases in traffic and the increase in my sphere of influence, I imagine that will happen in the coming months or year.

Are you thinking about starting a blog? While I’m certainly not yet an expert on blogging, you are welcome to contact me — I’d be happy to share some of what has worked well and not worked so well for me over the past five months.

It’s Tuesday and I’m still recovering from the “busy-ness” of last week in Richmond! Here you can see John Dickinson and me enjoying REALTOR® Day on the Hill last Wednesday.

The Legislative Conference was a very successful event. We made an impact on the Hill with our large numbers of attendees. We had more Legislators attend our Social Function at the Jefferson Hotel than we have in the past. We had the largest attendance ever, close to 600, who came to the Conference to take part in the Education classes that were available. Thanks to the work of the Staff and AG’s who all contributed to putting together the “extravaganza”!

I am officially making my Blogging debut with this post. I have encouraged our membership to become aware of the whole Social Media world and as your fearless leader, I’m jumping into it wholeheartedly. Ben Martin is helping down this path and I will be posting regularly as I travel around the State meeting with our local Associations.

My style, is to reach out for opinions and input…..so keeping with that thought I’d like for you to send me ideas or subjects about which you would like me to blog. Add comments or contact me at pat j at cfw dot com (Just learned this trick….keeps spammers from finding me from my email address!) I am excited about learning about the technology that is available to us and following this blog will create my FaceBook profile. Watch out Linkedin, I’m heading your way.

Admittedly, our National Association has been taken a beating of late for its adjusting and re-adjusting (and re-re-adjusting) of its 2007 homes sales forecasts. That, along with the seeming “It’s Always Sunny in Real Estate” spin that many critics read into the latest iteration of its public awareness initiative, have gotten us to the point that many in the press and the RE.net are questioning NAR’s credibility, both as a distiller of housing industry economic data and a truth teller when it comes to what’s really in consumers’ best interests in today’s real estate markets.

While NAR (or VAR either, for that matter) is not above criticism, there are always (at least) two sides to every story. There are even multiple facets to the same story. And there are certainly multiple ways of collecting and analyzing data, and multiple, sometimes contradictory, conclusions that can be drawn from that analysis. I’ll not belabor the point, except to say this: In particular, I believe that NAR’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun has gotten a bad rap for what some see as his too-rosy forecasts and well-spun public comments about the health of the real estate economy.

Thankfully, he now has a new platform for explaining himself and the inner workings of NAR’s econometrics, and it’s worth a read. It’s not a blog (yet), but NAR has begun to post commentaries by Yun at realtor.org behind the “research” tab. In particular, his recent post on some of the reasons for divergent home price trends is a spin-free, must-read.

I’m glad Lawrence is finding his voice. He’s a fresh, thoughtful, truth-telling asset to NAR. Would that more in the media (and, yes, the real estate blogosphere) were as thoughtful.

Now if they’d just turn his commentaries into a blog, we could all comment….

(I’m told Lawrence’s commentaries will be posted with some frequency at http://www.realtor.org/research, in case you want to bookmark it.)