Diana Blair

All I Want For Christmas Is My Lockbox Key to Work

Technology when it works is so wonderful but when my electronic key malfunctions, I have to admit that I long for simple metal key! I am not trying to say that we should return to the days of horses and buggies but sometimes you need the key to work. Santa's helpers probably need to make a list for me of all the nice reasons that we made a simple key system complicated. (Now I suppose I am being naughty!)

Last Sunday, an agent sent me an email message that her lock box key was not updating. She was upset because her key works sometimes then it mysteriously stops working. She had updated the key 2 days before; only to receive on Sunday the message reading "clock stopped." I told her that I would open up the house for her. Supremely confident that my key would work, I hooked my key up to my computer and viola I received the same horrible message. Then the situation worsened when I tried to take my key out so that I could reinsert it - my computer or key started beeping loudly. I really hate it when I hear beeping noises. Do the programming people that wrote BEEPS into the software for either device really believe that we respond better when a loud beeping noise is present? I think that they must have some sort of misguided, weird sense of humor.

If your key won't update on the computer, the second step in this process is to call the key vendor for the update code according to the vendor's instructions. The agent called but no one answered or responded. It turns out the vendor is in the Pacific Northwest which had horrible storms this weekend. Would our clients really believe that we could not open a door because our vendor was in the middle of a storm? I think that these days they might. In Christiansburg, VA, we could not open a vacant property because the electronic key would not update...hmmm?

Years ago, I learned that it is a good policy to make an extra key for emergencies for every listing. Too bad that I didn't have the extra key with me! I am now making a note to myself to keep the keys in my car so that I can access them. (The key codes of course would need to remain somewhere else for safety reasons.)

On Monday, I contacted our association office to complain about the vendor and ask that we consider a weekly updating system instead of updating every 2 days. At least I thought that we could have a day during a regular work week to update if we switched to a longer period of time between updates. Our vendor does not permit smart phone updates, which is another reason that I could use to persuade our association to make it easier on everyone by adopting a longer period of time for updates. (A broker at another company recently circulated a petition asking that we extend the update period.) Honestly, I think that a two day update period would be fine if the technology was dependable.

After contacting MLS, I received a response from the support saying that my computer virus protection probably stopped the update code from transmitting. The sender's name was Nick although I don't think that he is related to St. Nicholas even though he does work in the Pacific Northwest in a very snowy area. I responded to Nick..."Apparently, the other agent's virus protection also stopped her update code." According to the reply to my message, the vendor is not responsible for understanding the virus protection and software on agent's computers. Neither I nor the other agent has the same virus protection. It seems to me that when we buy something or lease a lock box key system it should work if it is meant to update on a computer...Don't all computers have virus protection? In the mean time, another agent told me that she experienced the same problem and resolved it by rebooting.

I should have known that rebooting would help but it helped only temporarily because yesterday my key would not update again. It seems that my agent has passed on her bad luck with our lock box keys to me. This time the message was "http: error 500" which means that while I was trying to reinsert and reboot, I loosened the connection. Why couldn't the message say, "Check your connection?" After another set of emails, I received a message from support to simply check my computer connections. The bottom line, when nothing seems to work, take out the battery and reinsert it or reboot. Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Years too!

Understanding Economic Issues to Eliminate Fear:

Do we have alternatives to promote sales?

Is our response to news of an economic crisis rational or irrational? There are so many terrific bargains out there so why aren't consumers buying homes or anything for that matter? I know, you know, we all know that clinging to our money is perpetuating our financial crisis but we are not spending money. I am not talking about wasteful spending. We are holding on to every dollar that we have. All of us have heard that we need a good retail season to help our economy. We know that houses in our market are bargains compared to 5 years ago when buyers often offered more than the sales price in order to out bid other buyers making offers for the same house. Were those buyers who paid more than the asking price "smart buyers?" What is happening?

This week, I attended a wonderful seminar. The economic strategist, Tuck Reed, for Sun Trust Corporation, a major bank and mortgage company talked about "Loss Theory." I took economics a long time ago so I had not heard about "Loss Theory." According to the strategist who put everything in simple terms, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for advancing this theory which says that if I find a $100 bill on the street, I will be happy. But if I lose a $100 bill, I will be totally devastated. In other words, losses affect us more. We allow negatives to outweigh greater positives if they are losses.

After doing a little more research for posting on my blog, I learned that in Prospect Theory, loss aversion refers to the tendency for people to strongly prefer avoiding losses than acquiring gains. Some studies suggest that losses are emotionally twice as powerful as gains. The real estate application for this scenario is, "Consumers don't seem to mind paying thousands of dollars more than the asking price for a house; however, if their house loses any value, the situation is a crisis."

Can we convince our sellers that they need to take a rational look at savings when they purchase a new home instead of dwelling on the loss when they sell? Until learning about Loss Theory, I could not understand why sellers weren't happy to sell their homes for a little less money when they were buying a more expensive home that was also declining in value. The bottom line for a seller buying a more expensive home in the post 2005 market is that the buyers can buy more for less money. When I did the math, sellers who bought more expensive home were far better off. Let's see if my home is worth $200,000 and depreciating at 5% but I am buying a new home at $300,000 which has depreciated at the same rate, the savings are favorable...especially in a market like our market in the New River Valley of Virginia which has been healthy. In Blacksburg, VA, the foreclosures for most of the year were in single digits. Most of our home owners have equity in their homes and fixed rate mortgages. A major mortgage broker in our area told me that when he did a 13 year survey of his loans, sub prime loans made up less than 1% of his portfolio. Homeowners in Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Radford, Giles County and Pulaski County have nothing in common with the highly leveraged homeowners in speculative markets that were at the root of the housing crunch but they now share the same fears thanks in part to our national media.

I hate to blame to media again but aren't they chiefly responsible for broadcasting fear which has paralyzed our country. Not only are our clients waiting but our agents are hesitating too. On more than one occasion recently, I have heard agents hesitant about marketing for 2009. Evaluating spending to insure that we achieve maximum results for our money spent is crucial; however, many agents are tightening their budgets as an excuse for not marketing. We all know that when agents say that they have no marketing plans, it translates to even less business which leads to a downward business cycle for all of us.

We need to remove barriers instead of setting up barricades. The speaker that I talked about said that there are $100 bills lying on the ground but no one is picking them up. Good buys are everywhere in our market. We have better inventory, superb and plentiful mortgages at an unheard of 4.75% interest rate and MOTIVATED SELLERS.

How can we utilize our relationships to market our listings in expensive ways that have big impact? Remember that according to NAR statistics, real estate agents are still responsible for 34% of the sales that lead buyers to a property that they didn't know about (From NAR 2007 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers as part of the Prudential Homeselling Proposal) as opposed to the 1% statistic for sales attributed to Home Magazines. Good marketing isn't always expensive. In 2009, we need to build stronger relationships to better market our properties.

Understanding what has happened and developing a strategy to avoid the same traps while pointing out the positives in our market is crucial. Fear tends to cripple its victims with inaction; hence, the phrase "frozen with fear." In order to focus on promoting our product, I am proposing a local networking session each month open to all area Realtors®. Let's call it "30 Minute Networking for Home Sales in the New River Valley."

We all know that a dialogue about our clients housing needs and new listings that may be coming on the market stimulates sales. Let's expand our networking sessions to all agents in our New River Valley MLS. The rules for the meeting should be simple:

• Everyone is invited! We need to knock down walls of communication blocking networking among firms. Our goals are to sell real estate. No recruiting at the meetings.
• Buyers' Agents will talk first about their clients' wish lists. Agents with a listing or potential listing will respond to the Buyer's Agents request; then, Listing Agents will take the floor.
• Attendees must speak in positive terms during the networking session. "Naysayers" should stay home. Also, this meeting is a fast track networking session so no personal anecdotes.
• The meeting will be concluded in an hour or less. All speakers should prepare in advance by bringing information such as handouts about listings, or prospects needs. We need to stay on point and move forward.

We will host the first meeting at our Blacksburg office at 318 North Main Street. We have plenty of parking in our parking lot behind our building. If you are ready to take action, please RSVP in advance by noon on January 5^th to enable me to advise you about assigned parking for the meeting. Let's schedule the 1^st meeting for Thursday, January 7^th, 2009 at 10 am which will end no later than 11 am. A good turnout means that we will have a monthly networking vehicle to help agents working with buyers and sellers that is free and positive. If you have a positive idea to reduce agent costs, please share them.

Up until this fall, agents throughout the New River Valley enjoyed a good real estate market that thrived amid news of other declining markets. This year, we have still experienced multiple offers on some properties. As the managing broker of Prudential Radford & Associates, Realtors, I have lately watched our market slow down as a result of consumer fear. It is time to focus on promoting our business by overcoming fear in the market place.

Predicting The Future of Real Estate!

If the media says it is it right...? I heard it on the news....We don't have many homes in foreclosure in the New River Valley and sellers are not taking offers that 20% less than their sales prices, so what is up? Predicting the future of real estate in the New River Valley may not be difficult if we base our predictions on the history of our housing market.

What influence does the big picture have on the smaller picture? More importantly, if national sales of homes are down, our buyers think that sale prices are down in the New River Valley when statistics may often be the opposite. Of course, there are times when national issues greatly affect our local economy like the effects created by the events of 9/11. There are also times when local events affect the nation such as the events at Virginia Tech on April 16^th, 2007. Our local economy faired well during both events in the past.

As I look out my window which faces Main Street in Blacksburg, I see streets filled with loyal Virginia Tech fans arriving here to watch the Thursday night ballgame. This week the number of customers walking into our office to buy a home has increased. As I drive through Blacksburg neighborhoods, I have seen few foreclosures. In fact, the number of foreclosures in Blacksburg was 8 from July 15^th - October 15^th according to the VAR Trends in the Virginia Housing Market (3^rd Quarter Report) source Realty Trac GMC: Center for Regional Analysis.

Our market was thriving until August of 2008, but already I am seeing signs of more activity.

Housing Inventory in the New River Valley of Virginia

Months of Inventory

October/2008 24.26

September/2008 25.09

August/2008 14.15

July/2008 12.41

June/2008 10.02

May/2008 11.82

April/2008 15.31

March/2008 14.64

February/2008 14.76

January/2008 16.71

Given that there were no dramatic area invents that occurred in August of 2008, it is probably fair to say that the national economic disaster strongly influenced our local market which has been moderate and stable since 2005 when it was at its peak. In December of 2007 we had a 23. 11 month inventory of residential homes that was down to a 14.76 month inventory as show above. In October, the sales price to list price ratios showed a difference in prices of the following:

Blacksburg Residential Homes -$6,525

Christiansburg Residential Homes -$5,745

Giles Residential Homes -$9,540

Montgomery County Residential Homes -$2,591

Pulaski County Residential Homes -$7,692

Radford City Residential Homes -$9,290

Average -$6,897

Even though less people were buying homes in October, the average sales price was 4% less than the average list price for these areas. What would these local statistics indicate? I think that local statistics suggest that we have a strong and diverse economy that was thriving despite national economic news until August 2008. According to our local MLS sales statistics for October, Blacksburg homes sales are averaging $243,025 while Radford homes sales were averaging $132,550.

Not only do we have a good supply of properties but we have varied price ranges available. We have seen similar inventory changes last year before we experienced a healthy spring market. My prediction: The New River Valley housing market is a good market for homeowners and investors. Before making a decision about the real estate market, buyers and sellers should consider the national and local real estate trends.

* Statistic quoted from NRVAR "My Market" MLS report. These statistics are deemed to be reliable but now guaranteed.

October 31st from 4-8 pm, the Blacksburg Virginia Downtown Merchants Association is hosting a Halloween Event for children under the age of 12. Local merchants will provide Halloween Treats for area children. Please encourage friends with children to take advantage of this fun Halloween event. Our Prudential Radford and Associates, Realtors office is located at 318 North Main Street in Blacksburg, VA 24060. We really enjoy handing out candy during to children all dressed up for the SPOOKY HALLOWEEN HOLIDAY. Many area children do not live in neighborhoods that make it easy to Trick or Treat. This downtown event allows participating merchants to provide a safe place for these children and anyone else who want to come out for treats. It's great to see all of the children in costumes walking downtown. Please join us.

Secret Downtown Parking for VT Hokie Game Days At Our Office

Donate to United Way!

Our reserved downtown office parking has been a well kept SECRET until now! This is a call out to all HOKIE Fans to reserve your parking and help area charities! During VT Hokie Games, I can reserve a spot for YOU, just give me a call or email. We are asking that you make a donation to United Way for Montgomery County (NRV) when you use a spot.

My Prudential Radford and Associates, Realtors® office is located at 318 North Main Street in BLACKSBURG just across the street from the VT Campus and adjacent to the Hokie House. We own and lease approximately 100 parking spaces behind our office. On VT Game days, we would like to make some of the spaces available but there is a catch...We are asking for a donation to our area United Way.

You may not be aware that area resources were greatly utilized last year after the April shootings at Virginia Tech. Many organizations that reached out to help area students, their families, and community workers who were involved in the tragedy are in dire need of help. They didn't have money in their budgets for a tragedy like the one that we experienced. Our office would like to do our part in helping our community; therefore, we are offering downtown parking for a donation. We think that this would be a "Win-Win" situation!

If you are a HOKIE FAN who knows someone in need of parking, please help us out by passing along this information! Make sure that you contact me before parking in our lot. If you park in a leased space, the tenant will have your vehicle towed which would be a very sad occurrence L