I've written about Google's Picasa, one of my picks for best new software for 2006- well Google's wonderful free photo editor just got better. Picasa Web Albums has been online for a while- 1 Gig free photo storage, but Google quietly improved it dramatically in late June. Now you can geotag your photos-- put your photos on a Google map. Have a look: You will have to click on a photo, then go back one level to see the map view. But what a view,it lays out the whole community. I'm waiting for Google to make this a bit easier. Like Slide.com, I can insert my Picasa Album slide show anywhere- I replaced my CharlotteCommunties Slide Show with my Picasa intro-- I like the Google better, see it here. Just as with Slide.com, I can change the look of my front page with a new slide show--but less advertising with the Google. Now when I receive a request about an area, I'll just send the link, or maybe embed the slide show! I'm working on a My Mapps application that will show where and at what price the Inventory is located in our fair city, with links back to the neighborhood slide show. I'll post it here when I'm done. As I said, this is too much fun! Bye Bye Slide.com, you were great, I'll miss you.

http://www.charlotterealestatehomesandcondos.com/002150

Tonight I'm looking at Uptown condos and intown living in Dilworth. First the condo's. There is a solid selection, so this week I'm looking at the under 230K, 2 bedroom market. The ideal first home for a young professional, perhaps taking a roomate to offset some of the mortgage. With its convenient in-town location, you won't be paying for parking. Tonight's winner: this condo is located in the First Ward and has 2 bedrooms and 2 baths, at just over 960 sf. This is a penthouse with spectacular city views, 10' ceilings, granite, hardwood floors and more. All appliances are included and the list price is 227,000... we'd try around 214,000 and see what we get back. You'll have to go considerably out South Blvd for a better value. In Dilworth I was shopping for single families under 500K. Dilworth was the city's first suburb, built from around 1900-1925. The homes are being rebuilt, for the 2nd and 3rd time. Price ranges run from 350K for something in need of remodelling, o well over $1M for larger fully remodeled homes. Tonight' winner Has 1976 sf, 3 bedrooms and 2 and one half baths. It is a complete house, with deck , yard and porch on one of the 2 or 3 best streets in Dilworth. Walk to the trolley, walk to downtown Dilworth, this house is convenient, and priced right at $500,000. Still, an offer of 475 makes sense, and see where it takes us. Larger homes have sold on this street for over 1M this year. The photo is a typical bungalow style Dilworth house. As always, I represent buyers, and in the interest of fairness, none of these recommendations are my listings, and as such MLS rules prohibit use of pictures. E mail me for more information at Terry (at) TerryMcDonaldRE.com. My recommendations are based on square foot and asking price, community amenities and my knowledge of the area-- your opinion would likely vary, and further investigation would be required. See you next week!

http://www.charlotterealestatehomesandcondos.com/00214E

So how much is enough? Take a look at the flyer I received by email today. Suppose the home sells for 1.3M, that is a 39k Buyer Side-- plus 50K, 89K 6.8%-- not the 12% I've heard from AZ but still, loads of dough. Two questions, 1) Is it unethical to show this home even if you make your buyer aware of the agent bonus 2) As the LA, is it unethical to make this offer to increase showings... do you think it will increase showings? I do. The last question I have is a rhetorical one, with offers like this, is it any wonder that the Redfin's of the world want a peace of our business... or that they can suggest we are lazy bums not sufficiently motivated by 39k so they need to bribe us with 50K more?


$50,000 Selling Agent BONUS!
Did you know average price per square foot of waterfront homes in Cornelius is over $300 per square foot???

Offered At: $1,450,000

* Waterfront
* 3 Level Home
* Private Dock
* Year Round Deep Water
* 3 Car Garage
* Large Rec Room with Full Bar and Wine Room
* 5612 HLA with additional 700+ unfinished sq ft for another bedroom/bathroom


COMMENTS:

Custom built waterfront home in Cornelius is listed $300,000 below value(5,612 x 312=$1.75M)! Some agents have not shown this home because of it's proximity to I77. We are giving you 50,000 reasons to show it! This 3-year old custom home couldn't be rebuilt today for under $1,000,000! Just ask yourself - what would a half-acre waterfront lot, with a private dock/pier and deep water in Cornelius cost? $500k?, $600k? the average is $700k just for the land! Bring your buyer now for an unbelievable deal - plus a $50,000 BONUS!

Scarrier yet Zillow ranks us as the 3rd strongest market in the nation... yeow.

http://www.charlotterealestatehomesandcondos.com/002145

Yes I know, Charlotte Home prices are up-- up 7% says the Charlotte Observer today. National real estate powerhouse Zillow , ranked Charlotte third best in the country with prices up 9%--so is that it? Well no, not exactly... not wanting to rain on anybody's parade-- how is Charlotte real estate really doing? The Observer just asks what the average sales price of a home was-- with no comparison by size, area distribution, or type. (single family, townhouse or condo) I think it is impossible to say how much property has appreciated in 2007 from those numbers. And Zillow? Check their last post on my site, Response from Zillow, to see if you can figure out how they compute their Zestimates, both regionally and nationally. I don't think I get it yet. So how did I figure the 2nd quarter results you see below? Easy, I computed average square foot price of homes in the area, over the three months of April through June 30, and compared it to the same area, in the same three months in 2006. Its simple division, and the Average Square Foot price of Sold homes increased 4.73% on 7.58% fewer sales. Here then are the 2nd quarter numbers:

Charlotte Metro Area, 2nd Quareter 2007

The obvious is that the average cost per sq foot rose 4.73% in the 2nd quarter of 2007 compared to the same period in 2006. But the number of units fell 7.6%, and look at the "Expireds"-- expired listings, those that didn't sell and expired, are up more than 25%. So then if the number of sales is off less than 8% , but the prices are up 4.73%, that's good, isn't it? In today's market, across the country it is good. While Zillow and I disagree about how good Charlotte is doing, we are in agreement that Charlotte is making it through the national housing decline very well. There you have the three different methodologies, no prize for guessing which I favor. I like mine because it is based on actual sales, totally objective numbers, that when taken in the aggregate, and averaged based on the heated square feet of a home, should be a representative sample and the leading indicator of how well Charlotte is appreciating. Also, they are easily verified by anyone with access to the MLS. In the past I've done market reports by zip code, but I'm changing that and I'm working on a list of "bell weather" neighborhoods to keep you posted on-- and taken together, they will provide a unique "value index" not unlike the Dow Jones. So why can't I just shut up and be happy with Zillows 9% or the Observer's 7%? Isn't that great?As a Realtor, wouldn't I want those numbers to be true? Yes I would and we are doing well, just not that well, and next week I may be sitting in your house, trying to estimate the value of your home to put it on the market. I'm sure you will have seen some of these headlines... and I want your home to sell at the best price, in the shortest time. One thing is certain, transparent real estate is here to stay and onlythe homes priced right will sell. I'll post further on these 2nd quarter results as time allows. tm

http://www.charlotterealestatehomesandcondos.com/002141

Update- Zillow announced yesterday that Charlotte MSA prices were up 9% over last year, 3rd best in the nation... which would be great if true, however my research, easily done with our MLS, indicates otherwise. Zillow responded in another forum to my question on how these numbers were created: Hi, it's David from Zillow; Terry - Zillow is a database of all homes not just those that are currently on the market and so we calculate Zestimate values for all of the homes in our database. With this database we can report the value trends of all homes not just those that recently sold. The beauty of this approach is that it is not skewed by a change in the mix of homes that are selling - a common problem for the traditional approach of reporting value trends using only an analysis of recent sales I think I understand that David, but I have two questions: Your national and local MSA numbers are then the addition of all of your Zestimates, which were created from the extrapolations from actual comparable property sales, correct? Essentially additions of estimates based on comparable sales, right? Then if I took ALL the sales over a longer period of time, and compared them to the same time and place last year, our numbers should be similar shouldn't they? Well they aren't, they are way off. Your President has stated that as much as 38% of your Zestimates are more than 10% off, why isn't your margin of error compounded in a fast moving market where prices could be going up or down relatively quickly. I'm not a statistician, but it seems that margin of error must go up in these conditons. While our numbers and yours do correspond in some regards- for example our more expensive homes have taken the hardest hit- your data indicated the medium to large home have taken a harder hit, a pretty similar picture, there is still a huge variance in our actual results from the MLS which while not 100% complete is a good representative sample of non-builder sales. I've recently done research on two of the top three leading zips, with appreciation based on average square foot prices from the MLS, reports showing them for the 3 month period ending July 31. In one zip code, there was price appreciation 50% below yours, and in the other? Double digit depreciation! The zip codes in question, 28277 appreciated 4.5%, and 28278 depreciated 11.97%--over May, June and July- quite a difference to Zillow's +9%, the actual reports are below for your review. Why is this important? Because I am sure one of our local papers will pick up the Zillow press release and report it, probably uncritically, and I'll have to face a seller next week who thinks his property has gone up 9% when it might have fallen 10% from last year. David, I'd like to be able to use your numbers--really I would if I had a sense they were atleast roughly accurate. They are impressive by their sheer volume and I know that a lot of big-time crunching has been done, but I just can't not explain the difference between our methods or why your addition of estimates would be a better measure of my market than the actual data, as long as there are sufficient transactions to be meaningful statistically. Here are my zip code Market Reports Market Report 28277- July 2007 Market Report 28278- July 2007 Don't get me wrong, I know Charlotte has fared much much better than most of the country, but the headlines need to be right. Your comments are appreciated. terry Post Options

http://www.charlotterealestatehomesandcondos.com/002140