Stacey Harmon

I wanted to invite you all to RE BarCamp Orange County! Hard to believe that our event is next week (August 19th, 2010). If you are a Realtor in Southern California, you won't want to miss it. We've got a great venue at UC Irvine, an outstanding group of active participants (including some Active Rain regulars such as Jeff Dowler), and a generous group of sponsors who have made it possible for you to attend for free!

Are you unfamiliar with RE BarCamp? If so, check out our event website for further details which includes this description of the gathering:

RE BarCamp is often described as an informal gathering of like minded people. Others refer to it as an “un-conference”. In the case of RE BarCamp OC, we will gather to discuss how technology and social media can benefit our real estate business. There is no set agenda or schedule for the day (this makes a lot of RE BarCamp “newbies” uncomfortable…if this is you, see the next paragraph). The sessions get determined the day of by the attendees who show up for the event. This ensures that the conversations at RE BarCamp are around topics that are of interest to the attendees. RE BarCamps have also historically pulled a lot of innovative real estate professionals – the movers and shakers of the space – you know, people who are trying and doing really interesting things. The networking alone makes the day rewarding. In addition, session are sometimes great, even outstanding. Sessions are also sometimes not so great. It’s all up to the attendees and their active participation in the day. We’ve been successful in securing enough sponsorship to make this event free to attend. The culture of RE BarCamp is that it is a vendor pitch free zone and this is expressed to event sponsors prior to accepting their sponsorship commitment. This is a key element in facilitating great discussions amongst attendees who don’t have to sit through hours of sponsor sales pitches in the midst of the days content.

Here are the event specs. Be sure to RSVP and please help us spread the word. Look forward to seeing you there!

When: Thursday, August 19, 2010

Time: Registration opens at 8:00. Last session ends at 4:15. Happy Hour after that.

Where: UC Irvine Student Center

Cost: Free

Registration: You must RSVP here.

Event Website & All The Details You Need to Know: www.REBarCampOC.com

At the recent Inman Real Estate Connect Conference in San Francisco, Wordpress continued to gain visibility as the modern platform for real estate websites. A full half day workshop was dedicated to the platform and it's use in the real estate space. Over at Agent Applause, I'm continually on the look out for great examples of Realtor websites built on the wordpress platform and a recent post highlighted Realtor Amanda McMillian's Chicago Home Partner's Website as a great example. I've also highlighted the Good Life Team's wordpress website which is the online foundation for Krisstina Wise's brokerage and is part of the package that warranted her group a 2010 Inman Innovator Award.

It seems fair to say that Wordpress isn't going anywhere as a development platform for real estate. I advocate it for agents, even if they aren't interested in blogging. Wordpress allows Realtors to set up sites that look like websites, de-emphasize the blogging portion of the site, and still maintain a customized look and the flexibility of changing content quickly and without reliance on a developer.

Check out this example from Glen Oaks Escrow - one on my Harmon Enterprises clients. I project managed the building of their new corporate website, which is built in Wordpress. Although we pulled in the blog element onto the home page, the majority of the site appears to be a static website, worthy of representing the corporate presence of the company. Yet because it is built in Wordpress, their is an inherent flexibility in the site that allows for the company to change page content, update employee information, and post new pages as the business grows or chooses to emphasize different areas of expertise.

Realtors have the same opportunities with Wordpress. For 32 great examples of Real Estate Wordpress sites, check out this post which gives screenshots and URLs for some great examples for Realtors to model their sites after. I'll be updating the presentation soon with additional examples. Stay tuned for an announcement soon. Do you have a great real estate site, or know of one, that is built on Wordpress? Let me know - I'd love to see it!

For incoming UCI Merage MBA students interested in renting in Coastal Orange County, Jonathan Lasner of the Orange County Register had an interesting blog post reporting on the local rents and vacancy rates in various cities around Orange County. As excerpted from his post, the average rent in those cities most convenient for Merage MBA students at UC Irvine is as follows:

City Average Rent
Irvine $1,908
Costa Mesa $1,656
Newport Beach $1,965
Aliso Viejo $1,741

If you are looking to save a few hundred dollars a month, and will have a car during your time at the Merage School of Business, both Costa Mesa and Aliso Viejo offer more affordable rental options while still being very convenient to campus. They are definitely cities to consider in your rental search. Costa Mesa in particular is half way between the Merage School of Business and the beach - hard to get much better than that! Several of my classmates (myself included) resided in Costa Mesa as graduate students.

For more information or assistance in renting an off-campus apartment or condo during your MBA experience, please contact Stacey Harmon at 949.885.6497.

Curious about the lowest and highest priced listings in Irvine?

This list covers the 5 lowest, and 5 highest properties in the city of Irvine as of 4.18.08 for both the condo, and single family home categories.

Lowest Priced

Condos

• $232,500 | 47 Lakepines, 1 bd/1 ba (REO)
• $239,900 | 156 Streamwood, 1 bd/1 ba
• $255,000 | 3210 Watermarke Place, 1 bd/1 ba (Short sale)
• $263,000 | 3415 Watermarke Place, 1 bd/1 ba (REO)
• $275,000 - $300,000 | 2271 Scholarship, 1 bd/1 ba (Short sale)

Single Family Homes

• $399,900 - $429,900 | 100 Orchard, 2 bd, 1 ba
• $429,000 | 87 Orchard, 2 bd/2 ba
• $499,900 | 14952 Greenbrae, 2 bd/1 ba
• $500,000 | 14781 Doncaster Rd, 3 bd/2 ba (Short sale)
• $519,900 | 4472 Robinwood Circle, 3 bd/2 ba

Highest Priced

Condos
This list does not include the extensive high-rise condo options that are currently available in Irvine and can go up to $3.9M for a condo.

• $1,499,900 | 14 Sirius, 3 bd/3 ba
• $1,325,000 | 26 Sarena, 3 bd/3 ba
• $1,295,000 | 41 Mirador, 3 bd/3 ba
• $1,295,000 | 32 Morning Breeze, 3 bd/3ba
• $1,285,000-$1,299,000 | 32 Shade Tree, 3 bd/4 ba

Single Family Homes
Not surprisingly, all of the highest priced homes are in the exclusive, gated community of Shady Canyon and are all custom built homes.

• $11,800,000 | 89 Canyon Creek, 9 bd/11 ba
• $11,679,000 | 56 Golden Eagle, 5 bd/6 ba
• $9,995,000 | 66 Canyon Creek, 5 bd/8 ba (this really is a spectacular home - one of the best layouts of a custom home in Shady Canyon that I have seen)
• $8,995,000 | 63 Canyon Creek, 5 bd/7 ba
• $8,995,000 | 24 Cactus, 6 bd/9 ba

Have an interest in any of these properties? For further information, please contact Stacey Harmon at 949.885.6497.

Curious about the lowest and highest priced listings in Newport Beach?

This list covers the 5 lowest, and 5 highest properties as listed in the MLS for the Newport Beach market as of 4.18.08 in both the condo, and single family home categories. For this list, the Newport Beach market is defined as the city of Newport Beach and includes the areas of Corona del Mar, Newport Coast, and Crystal Cove.

Lowest Priced

Condos

• $249,900 | 1100 Rutland Road, #11, 1 bd/1 ba (REO Property - currently has in 3 offers - not surprising as this is an unheard of price in Newport Beach!)
• $325,000 | 200 McNeil Lane, #5 1 bd/1 ba
• $389,000 | 102 Scholz Plaza, 1 bd/1 ba
• $399,900 | 1256 Rutland Road, #2, 2 bd/2 ba
• $415,000 | 200 McNeil Lane, #7 1 bd/1 ba

Single Family Homes

• $789,000 | 20462 Santa Ana Ave, 2 bd/2 ba
• $789,000 | 41 Egret Court, 2 bd/2 ba
• $795,000 | 74 Pelican Court, 2 bd/2 ba
• $799,000 | 1561 Indus Street, 5 bd/3 ba
• $849,900 | 338 Cherry Tree Lane, 3 bd/2 ba

Highest Priced

Condos

• $2,995,000 | 9 Rue Cannes, 3 bd/3 ba
• $2,994,900 | 146 Sidney Bay, 4 bd/4 ba (just went into escrow this week)
• $2,899,000 | 118 Sidney Bay, 3 bd/4 ba
• $2,850,000 | 81 Monterey Pine, 5 bd/5 ba
• $2,850,000 | 106 Sidney Bay, 4 bd/4 ba

Single Family Homes

• $75,000,000 | 4627 Brighton Road, 8 bd/15 ba (was featured on Oprah - has been listed for 718 days as of today - maybe a tad overpriced?)
• $26,900,000 | 18 Shoreline, 9 bd/20 ba
• $24,900,000 | 21 Pelican Vista, 4 bd/20 ba
• $20,995,000 | 12 Skyridge, 5 bd/7 ba
• $18,800,000 | 42 Pelican Point, 4 bd/6 ba

Have an interest in any of these properties? For further information, please contact Stacey Harmon at 949.885.6497.