Friday Facts March 18, 2011

FRIDAY FACTS
March 18, 2011

Beware unintended consequences. An article in RISMedia quotes John Badalamenti, Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors, Wayne, PA, “Buyers are still looking for perfection with comfort. As a result of the home staging craze, buyers have become a bit spoiled. Homes are almost being put on the market as museum pieces. You can bounce a dime off a bed.”

Steve Murray notes in RealTrends, “Finding a niche, a special market segment, will be key to prosperity in the future. What’s new about this, is not that this is the lesson for sales professionals, but that now even brokerage firms will have to specialize in some form or format of brokerage – no more can a brokerage be all things, to all people, at all times.”

Here are excerpts from an article in the Wall Street Journal on February 26, 2011 entitled, “Five Signs That Say ‘Buy’:
Jobs. Jobs data are about one month old and can show the direction of the local economy.
Recent Sales Activity. Look at a composite of housing inventory, sales volume and prices.
Construction. Check the number of building permits issued recently.
Mortgage Availability. Gauge local lending patterns
Anecdotal Evidence. Check out open houses and talk to local agents.

· A Re/Max office has now opened in a Stop & Shop in Springfield, MA, part of a 5 year deal between Re/Max and Stop & Shop.

· Gahlord Dewald reports in Inman News that last week, Google rolled out a new algorithm change, a result of growing concern over the quality of search results on Google. The new algorithm is meant to deliver higher quality search results. It means that the quality of real estate content on websites is now being mathematically calculated.

· From ICREA’s WorldProperties.com, during January and February, Canadian property entrepreneur, Cam Good, sold more than 500 homes to mainland Chinese investors and immigrants in the Vancouver and Toronto areas.