The Bosshardt Blog

What's happening in real estate: The week in review

On Monday Bosshardt Property Management got eight of us back from the NARPM national convention. We started implementing our plans to further improve our organization and enhance our customer and client services. Settling back in from an event like this can be pretty tumultuous at best. Lots of changes in store!

On Tuesday, at the Bosshardt Realty Services Sales Meeting, we broke out into a raucous debate when Alarion Banker and Elite Gainesville Mortgage man Mike Jones told us that area appraisers are now using foreclosures in their appraisals where they previously would ignore them. "In the final analysis, foreclosure sales are driving market prices. Combined with short sales, they represent almost 40 percent of our deals now," said Jones. Look for real estate prices to fall. Jones also mentioned that Gainesville is one of the few areas left in the nation denoted as a "severely declining market." Only a month ago or so we asked how low will prices go.

Wednesday, the Gainesville Sun published an article that the "Big Chill" might be back in Real Estate. Based on Tuesday's discussion, this was no shock. "It's all about supply and demand," said Craig Wilburn. "We still have three times the supply we did back in 2002." Wilburn has moved his own personal forecast for a bottom and recovery out to 2011. Yikes!

Speaking of Craig Wilburn, it seems the marketing event has returned to Real Estate. On Thursday, Craig had all of us out to a new listing of his in Balmoral. The event was co-hosted by Two Men and a Truck, Aaron Bailey Photography, American First Mortgage, and Bosshardt Title.

   
I met the owners of Two Men and a Truck and the name should be Two Men, One Woman, Two Sweet Kids, and a Truck. Nice folks. I bet the most common question those kids hear is, "Do you get to drive the truck?"

Kim Bosshardt of Bosshardt Title had chocolate macaroons from Too-Jays there. Craig had a blackjack table manned by Gator voice-man Tom Collete. Wilburn gave away numerous door prizes. Harold Monk with Gator Wine and Spirits played bartender and served a fruity wine tasting. Wilburn called the event a "tremendous success. We had 50 to 60 people in attendance. Realtors in attendance said that the house was showcased well and would be the first home they showed to their buyers. Most people commented they couldn't believe the home was priced under one million."

On Friday, we awoke to see Realtor and Koppers Activist Cindy Harrington on Page 5A of the newspaper. The online article is here, but the black and white print photo is even more chilling I think. I've cut this one out and plan to frame it. My first thought was "Wouldn't you be afraid to tell this Realtor no deal? " Good for you, Cindy!

By the way, if you didn't believe that Google was now indexing Tweets in their searches, just Google "Bosshardt and NARPM" and see what comes up first. Have a great weekend and Go Gators!

RETS make a deal: Bosshardt site area's first to integrate emerging technology

Posted by Lem Purcell, Director of IT & E-Business, Bosshardt Realty, 03/10/2009

 I am pleased to announce the arrival of RETS technology in the Gainesville real estate market.

RETS (Real Estate Technology Standard) is a relatively new flavor of IDX (Internet Data Exchange) that provides a standard language for live sharing of MLS listing information across the Internet.  In plain English, it's a live feed directly from an MLS system to its recipients, whether it be a broker's management software or, in this case, a web site available to the public.  RETS has already been utilized for a while in major metro markets but was not in use in Gainesville . . . until now.

Traditionally, the listings information you see on a realty's web site is provided by a text-based IDX feed file, sent once a day, from the broker's local or state MLS.  In this format, listings information can be up to two days old (more, in some cases) before it makes its way to the web.  Thus, new listings, price reductions, updated photos, and other important listing information can take up to 48 hours to propagate to web sites and you, the user.

Not anymore.

We here at Bosshardt decided that the old way just wasn't good enough for our valued site visitors.  Accordingly, our in-house programming team went to work with our MLS provider (MarketLinx, who deserves big kudos for putting together the RETS feed in the first place) to integrate RETS with the BosshardtRealty.com web site.

The results? Our listings information is now updated with live data every hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  In other words, when you search Gainesville real estate (and Alachua County; over 6,200 listings as of today) on the Bosshardt web site, the information you see there is never more than 60 minutes old.  We're the first in this market to do it, and it's a powerful, powerful enhancement for both our buyers and sellers.  I couldn't be more excited about it and invite you to take full advantage of the market's most up-to-date real estate information on what is already Gainesville's most popular realty web site.

More BosshardtRealty.com updates to come.  Enjoy! 

Bosshardt Realtors discuss Web 2.0

Posted by Aaron Bosshardt, COO, Bosshardt Realty, 01/26/09

Web 2.0 interactive session

While I’m certainly no web guru and definitely no more than a Web 2.0 neophyte, I thought it would be nice to chronicle our collective journal through this learning process as we transition from the way we have always done real estate to redefining how real estate will be done in our markets: Venice, Ocala and Gainesville, Florida.

What is Web 2.0? 

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.[3]

-Tim O’Reilly

Web 2.0 and the financial crisis combine to represent a combined incredible opportunity.

How do you make your business and data live?

One way is Blogging:

1. What data do I have that is of interest to the consumer? Makes your website interactive. You want and need comments.
2. Marketing is dead. Think like a publisher. How do you publicize your listings? How do you publicize your business?
3. Newspapers are down, but the need for news is still alive. Make yourself the source of news as it relates to your market and area of expertise.
4. For your listings, remember the quote, “Books don’t sell themselves. Ideas and concepts do.”

We had a lot of discussion about Facebook and Twitter. As we were talking one of the gurus on Twitter I follow actually put up a great post here!

 Robert Krames, SEO expert with Smart Media, did a presentation on RSS feeds and Google Reader.

We also mentioned the Edelman Report on Social Networking used in the 2008 Election and applications for business use.

We will be meeting again Friday at 12pm in the workroom. Don't be afraid to bring your questions or your lunch!

Top 10 Real Estate Stories of 2008: #4 SNS

Posted by Aaron Bosshardt, COO, Bosshardt Realty, 01/09/09

#4 Social Networking Sites (SNS)

This morning I Twittered the question "Do they work?" I already knew the answer as I had just received the following text message the day before: "Just got  a buyer referral from Indiana through ActiveRain...Thanks Boss!" This was from one of the agents I referred to the Activerain network (an SNS for real estate related professionals). All he did was set it up as a resume page. No blogs for him, no need.

The point is these sites let us do our homework. I used Activerain to find a great Realtor for a friend of mine in Jacksonville. It's much better than picking a name out of a phone book. You can find out enough about the quality of an agent through the quality of his or her profile. LinkedIn, similarly, is an SNS on an even broader scale for all professionals where we can recommend and interact with one another.

On a larger scale, Facebook, an SNS for everyone, seemed to dominate the year, MySpace is huge, and Twitter is on the rise again. All these high tech services allow us to stay in high touch with our friends and customers. Our company even has a Facebook page now. Many companies do. Kraft foods for one; the Big Three of course are trying....

Anyway, with advertising budgets down, NAR's annual conference was filled with classes to instruct us all on how to harness these tools to create a Groundswell. Low cost publicity if you do it right...

That makes Social Networking Sites the #4 top story for the real estate industry in 2008.