Lisa Heindel, New Orleans Real Estate Broker

While planning your holiday shopping this year, I'd like to encourage you to spend your dollars with locally owned small businesses who rely on our support to keep their doors open as they provide not just goods and services, but jobs and tax dollars that benefit us directly.

November 26, 2011 marks the second annual Small Business Saturday - a day we should all come together and support our local businesses by keeping our shopping dollars here in our own community. Although started by the folks at American Express, it truly has little to do with a credit card company and loads to do with how we can each have a positive impact on our local economy while doing the shopping that we all need to get done at this time of year.

You are welcome to join the Amex Facebook page for Small Business Saturday, but the true focus needs to be on making the effort to help our friends and neighbors that own local businesses...whether it's an art gallery, a small home based craft business or even grabbing a gift certificate to a West Bank restaurant, we can all find ways to keep our holiday budget dollars right here in our own community.

Need a place to start? Visit StayLocal! for a list of businesses that are owned by Louisiana residents.

Do you have a small business in the New Orleans area? Feel free to leave your information in the comments so all of our readers will know about you!

Originally published at West Bank Living

I clipped this from the Times-Picayune because I wanted to be sure home buyers realize that not all of this is true (or it shouldn't be, anyway). While the advice might be really relevant to buying a car, some of it misses the mark when it comes to home buying.

Know the home-court advantage: While we have definitely helped buy and sell more houses than the average person, I can assure you that we do not know what you are thinking, nor have we taken any classes to read you and sell you. If you are working with a professional agent, you shouldn't have to be on guard. You should know, instead, that a good agent doesn't sell you a house.

Watch for the qualifying questions: We don't need to look for your wedding ring or ask questions about how much you can afford, because a prepared buyer has already taken the steps to be pre-qualified for a mortgage. This isn't a car. It's likely the largest single purchase you will ever make and the people (and banks) selling homes will not be willing to even start negotiating with you until they are sure you are qualified and not wasting their time.

Hit the streets: There are rules that agents and brokers must follow when a property is no longer available and that includes updating the status within 72 hours of a home going under contract, being sold or leased or even being taken off of the market. That said, there will always be a delay in updating some third party sites such as Trulia or Zillow, since they don't get listing information directly from the MLS. If you find that a particular site is always out of date, you may want to do a little digging and find a more up to date local site for your home search.

Put time on your side: "When the agent sends you information...act blase. Being too eager tips your hand" Your agent is absolutely the one person that you should inform that you are eager. It's the seller that you don't want to tip your hand to and your agent is there to protect you from doing just that.

Don't get emotional: This actually is pretty good advice, because there certainly are things that can derail a home purchase (inspections, appraisal). Except that buying a home is almost always emotional. We tell buyers that when they walk into the house that should be their home, they will know it. Of all of the houses I've ever lived in, each one whispered "buy me" as I walked through.

I feel sorry for the person who wrote this piece, because she obviously didn't feel like her REALTOR® was on her side during her home purchase. If you have any of those same concerns about your agent, it might be time to find a new one.

Find more home buying advice at West Bank Living

One of my pet peeves with the New Orleans MLS (Multiple Listing Service) is that they have not kept up with the times in regards to how they share real estate listings with the agents that subscribe to the service or with the home buying and selling public.

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of online sites that buyers can go to find lists of homes for sale. Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo!...heck, even just a google search will turn up page after page of national sites for your perusal in addition to a large number of local agent websites.

The problem from a home buyer and seller perspective is that the MLS doesn't allow every member agent to display every listing on their site, leading to confusion about what properties are actually for sale.

• Your favorite home search might be on Trulia or Zillow, but did you know that at least one of the major brokerages in New Orleans doesn't post their listings on either of those sites? Add in the boutique brokers who don't have much of an internet presence, and if you land on one of those sites your list of homes adds up to something less than 100% of the active listings.
• Realtor.com only has the listings of those brokerages that are members of the National Association of Realtors. Although I'll grant that it's the majority of homes for sale, it's still not everything that's available.

So, why can't you find all of the listings on all of the sites? Because real estate brokerages in New Orleans operate under a rule that forces the home buyer to their broker owned sites if they want to search for every active listing in the MLS.

What's wrong with the brokers controlling access to the information?

If you have spent the time researching New Orleans REALTORS® and finally found an agent that you connect with and want to work with, you are forced to leave that warm and fuzzy place when you are booted to the brokerage site for home searches. I don't know about you, but I get a little nervous when new windows start opening on my laptop because I clicked a link. Personally, if I decide to search on a particular site, I want to stay there - not be cyber directed to someplace else because of an antiquated and outdated rule that has absolutely nothing to do with serving me - the consumer.

Some brokerages have the habit of gathering your contact information and then collecting a substantial referral fee to let the agent you want to work with have access to you. Now, it's not quite as brusque as that sounds, but the bottom line is that it's a more than a little self serving for brokers to demand that all home searches be done on their sites AND to then take advantage of that rule to make more money. I know...you couldn't give a rat's behind how much your agent makes when you buy or sell a home. But, if they are doing the same amount of work for you that they are doing for someone that they don't have to pay a referral fee for, who do you think is going to get priority if there is a conflict with time or resources? If you are selling your home, one of the main goals of your agent is to get you the maximum amount of exposure to potential buyers.

When brokers limit the display of all listings to broker owned sites instead of to the sites of every agent in the metro area, they are also limiting your home's ability to be found by buyers. With so many buyers using the internet as their primary home search tool, shouldn't you be able to expect that your listing will be in as many places as possible?

From an agent's perspective

As a listing agent, I promise my sellers that I can bring the eyeballs and get their home included in the search results. I want my listings to be on as many sites as I can get them on, whether it's mine, another agent's or a third party real estate site. The current rules limit how agents are allowed to market a home. I've been actively working with a group to push the MLS board to change this rule but, sadly, we have not yet been successful. It's frustrating, because this is NOT the industry standard. If you've come from an area where open sharing is the norm, you will probably waste time figuring out that you can't find every listing everywhere.

From a consumer's perspective

I read this comment on a site one day and it really hit home as to why the current system is broken:

Realtors are pretty far behind the curve in terms of utilizing the internet, they post lousy photos, and do not provide enough information and make it difficult to quickly gather information. Generally most realtors appear to approach internet marketing as though they have something to hide instead of having something to show. Transparency in advertising builds trust with the public....

I have been looking for property to purchase, and am annoyed by the lack of complete information on New Orleans realtors websites, and the lousy photos, so I am using this story as an opportunity to vent, but I also know that all of the realtors in New Orleans will be reading this story, and I am hoping that they will read this post and think about what I am writing and improve their websites. Whoever does will find that they have more internet traffic and more business.

The bottom line is that the consumer should always come first.

Whether it's a buyer searching for a home or a seller who wants to be found during that search, every agent and broker has a duty to their client to put their needs first. Until this rule is changed, none of us is truly doing that.

Homes for sale in New Orleans (please don't freak out when a new window opens)

This post was originally published at West Bank Living

The City of New Orleans wants you. Well, your opinion anyway.

Most of us have had that experience of poor customer service from a city employee. Or a terminal wait on hold only to be disconnected. Or getting the run around on who is responsible for a problem in our neighborhood. Recently, the city added a section to their website asking for suggestions from residents on how we can make our city better.

From Mayor Landrieu:

We all know that the City needs to fundamentally change how we do business – we need to find strategies and initiatives that harness our ability to continually improve and innovate in government. We need your ideas to cut the red tape, waste and abuse.

We want to hear directly from you, the customer, about what works and what doesn’t. Please click here to share your ideas.

In order begin this process, we enlisted the help of David Osborne and the Public Strategies Group. David Osborne is probably the best expert in the country in helping governments of all shapes and sizes find strategies that unleash their ability to become more efficient and entrepreneurial. PSG’s report takes a hard and honest look at many of the major challenges we face—challenges like red tape, woeful IT systems, and a legacy of poor management that cripple our ability to reach our potential.

It then identifies an agenda of ten strategies designed to fundamentally transform how the City of New Orleans does business...

Give your opinion on how to cut red tape in New Orleans and let's all work together to make New Orleans better than ever.

Find out more about New Orleans communities at West Bank Living

This year was the first one in a long time that I wasn't able to attend all three days of the annual Heritage Festival in Gretna LA. But, despite the fact that I missed the final day, I was still able to get some pictures and video of all of the festivities.

The festival seems to get bigger every year, but still manages to keep that small town feel that I love so much. Hope you enjoy the photos!

For more news and events on the West Bank of New Orleans, please visit West Bank Living