A Griffith Listing

Real Estate Services by Jon Griffith

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Weekly Market Update

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As usual, the graphs below, organized by week, outline the activity in the market since the beginning of the year.

Inventory for all of ARMLS stands at 54,114 homes with an average asking price of $411,671. The average sales price over this period was $245,206. The average asking price for properties that sold during the week is actually lower than the sales price.

Homes are selling on average in 101 days. Based on our current inventory and rate of closing, we are looking valleywide at a 9 month inventory on average.

Weekly Market Update

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All stats in the weekly update are based on all residential listings and are compiled using data from ARMLS records. I do not guarantee that these statistics are 100% accurate, but they do represent the market trends accurately.

All of the statistics are represented graphically, recorded for each week of the year starting with week one, January 1 – 7.

FlexMLS Conversion This Weekend

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We’ve been waiting, and now is the time. Over the next 3 days, data input functions will not work on the new ARMLS FlexMLS platform which every ARMLS user will be converted to over the weekend. I have been excited about this system since I first heard about it, and since I’ve used it, I’ve been touting it to everyone I come in contact with. It’s very quick and very easy to use, and finally, it’s an application that’s been designed and optimized for use within Firefox, not Internet Exploder. For the industry as a whole, it is a major upgrade to the ARMLS users.

With all of the training that has been offered over the past six to ten weeks, it’s still surprising to me how many real estate professionals haven’t even touched the new system. Personally, I think this is a detriment to their own business, as they will be faced with learning how to utilize the new system on the fly as you, the client, demand from them.

Since the first day of July, I have been working within the new FlexMLS system and have found it to be vastly superior to the predecessor and cannot wait to show you how nice the system is.

If you’re in the market to buy, which all of you should be considering, then let me help you find your home by creating a custom portal for you to enjoy! Simply contact me today and I’ll set your sights on your dream home!

Presenting Your Home: Photos

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80% of all buyers use the internet to shop for a home.  It takes an average of 12 to 18 months for them to actually purchase a home, from the initial thoughts of selling their home to the process of purchasing yours.  Since those people start on the internet, listing your home without photographs would be as effective as driving a car without gas.

Think about how many products you’ve been sold on because of the marketing that goes into it.  How much of that marketing contained images of people, places, the actual product?

If your house does not have a photo, people will not look at it.  They will not show it, they will not even think about it.  It’s gone, and getting them back will be difficult if the image is added too late, and here’s one reason why.  When I look for new homes on the market, I skip the properties without photos at first, then I go back to look at the ones without if I think my client would like it, based on my knowledge of the area.  If I go back at a later date and a picture has been added, it actually has a greater chance of being skipped because at that point, I’m looking for the results that don’t have photos.

The new FlexMLS allows us to search for listings based on whether or not they have photos.  This basically eliminates properties from my search if it doesn’t have a photo.

Part of my marketing plan, which is by no means an added benefit, is that I take lots of photos.  I say that it’s not an added benefit because no property should be listed without photos, period.  I don’t just take photos, I publish a property website for each listing, publicize it to as many places on the internet as I possibly can, and I create my own custom slide show for your home.

ARMLS used to offer photography services for us.  They would take a shot of the front of the property for us and we wouldn’t have to do anything, but it would only be one mediocre photo.

ARMLS announced today that they would be discontinuing this service and they offered the following reasons for the change:

  • Over half of the listings currently in TEMPO were marked “do not photograph” when they were entered into the system.
  • 80% of the half that WAS photographed by PhotoReal had their exterior photo replaced with one supplied by the listing agent within two weeks of the listing going active.
  • 90% of the current listing database has photos provided by agents rather than the PhotoReal photography service.

What’s the most important thing to note in these three points?  “WITHIN TWO WEEKS OF THE LISTING GOING ACTIVE.”

The fact that agents enter listings AT ALL WITHOUT PHOTOS is hurting the potential sale of your property.  List with me and I’ll make sure you don’t experience those gaps in service.

For an example of a website that I created for one of my listings, click here.

ARMLS Blackout to Occur in July

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Don\'t get caught in the dark!Don’t panic.  It’s not really a blackout, but for the days July 25th, 26th, and 27th, no changes will happen in the MLS system at all.  Your Realtor will have full search capabilities and you’ll be able to see your Portal, but during that time, no changes will be able to occur.

What does this mean?  No new listings, no new photos, no price modifications, no pending changes or active with contingency changes…

…basically, the database becomes READ ONLY during this 3-day period.