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When do you search for homes? |
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Apparently a lot of people go to bed at 11PM....  Click on the image above for a fun, interactive infographic from Trulia exploring when people are online searching for homes. | |
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Whether Serious Buyers or Real Estate Junkies, Online Property Views Are On The Rise! |
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Take a look at the graph below to see how buyer momentum is shifting in our market. Do note, of course, that this is people looking at properties online, which is not the same as buyers committing to buy properties.  click the image above for a higher resolution PDF It will take several more months to know whether the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market really has turned the corner towards recovery, but the graph above shows yet another indicator that we may be headed in the right direction! | |
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Conflicting Real Estate Market Indicators |
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Explain this....  The number of properties viewed online (on our company site and all of our company's agent sites) has increased dramatically over the past year. Thus, it seems that more buyers are hunting for homes. But when we compare the number of closings in the first 28 days of last March and this March, we see a rather significant decline. What is going on here?
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Will You Be Buying A New Home in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County? |
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If you are considering the purchase of a new home in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County, you may want to check out HarrisonburgNewHomes.com, where you'll find an overview of many of the new communities being built in our area.  I represent the builders of each of these communities, and am assisting them with the marketing of the new single family homes, duplexes and townhomes. For more information about any of these neighborhoods, feel free to contact me or one of the other Realtors also marketing these communities:
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So Far, So Good In January -- Lots Of Buyers Are Looking For Homes Online! |
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With nearly 2 million page views on our company and agent web sites over the past year, we pay careful attention to trends in the number of people looking for properties for sale on our web sites.  As you can see above, more properties were viewed in January 2010 than in any month over the past 13 months. February being a short month, we may see a slight dip this month, but this trend likely indicates that our real estate market is headed in a more positive direction! Join the crowd: Search for property now by clicking here! | |
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Search Online for Staunton, Augusta County and Waynesboro Homes |
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My web site allows you to perform many search functions if you're looking for homes in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, such as the New Listing Search, Quick Search, Community Search and Power Search. Some time last year we added the ability to search in Shenandoah and Page Counties via the MRIS MLS System. You can now also search all listings in the Greater Augusta Assocation of Realtors MLS using the same intuitive search functions on my web site! To access this new data set, just use the "Now Searching" drop down in the upper right corner of my web site when you're in the searching section.  Happy Searching! | |
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Power Search: Finding Cute Homes, Short Sales, Fixer Uppers and More! |
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Just a brief public service announcement, reminding you of the ever-entertaining "Power Search" function on my web site. Use the "Keywords" field to search by all sorts of things, such as "short sale"......  As you can see, this gave us 14 search results. Thus, if you've ever wanted to search for current short sale listings, you can do so using the Keywords field in my web site's Powersearch function. Also, as some bonus analysis for today:
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Predicting Home Sales Using Online Property Views |
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Can we predict home sales by examining the number of properties viewed on the network of Coldwell Banker Funkhouser Realtors web sites? Possibly....  Above you'll see a graph that tracks home sales per month in tandem with the number of properties viewed each month on the Coldwell Banker Funkhouser Realtors network of web sites (my web site, the company web site, all other agent web sites). I think there does seem to be a general correlation between the two sets of data. That being the case, we should expect to see home sales level out or decline as we move into the next few months --- which is winter, and typically slow. However ---- an extension and expansion of the home buyers tax credit is being considered, which, if passed, could incent more buyers to get into the market, causing an increase instead of a decrease in the number of home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. | |
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Finding "that" house for sale in Harrisonburg |
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 Are you ever looking for a house that is for sale with only one or two clues? If you only know the street name, subdivision, or Realtor's name, you'll have a difficult time finding the home on most web sites. Funny thing --- because if you're driving by a house you'll often only know one of these (rather essential) bits of information. As you can see above, I have accommodated for these frequent searches on my web site. You'll quickly be able to search for a property by its street name, subdivision, Realtor, or MLS number. A few notes.... Subdivision: This can be quite helpful as you explore a variety of neighborhoods where you are considering a purchase. Realtor: This search will allow you to search by any Realtor in our local MLS, not just those at Coldwell Banker Funkhouser Realtors. Try it out --- type in the name of a local Realtor and you'll see all of the properties they have listed for sale. Quick Search Tab: Don't forget you can also quickly search for a property by Address, MLS# or Realtor from anywhere on my web site using the Quick Search Tab in blue to the right of "My Services". If you have any suggestions for making your home search process even easier or faster, feel free to leave them in the comments below, call me at 540-578-0102, or e-mail me at scott@cbfunkhouser.com. | |
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Possibly the best real estate deals in Harrisonburg? |
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Here's a reminder of the very cool "Search by Square Foot" function on my web site in the Power Search area. You can quickly find the houses that offer the most house for the dollar by inserting search criteria in the "Price / SF" field. Here, for example, are the eight single family homes in the City of Harrisonburg with asking prices that equate to $90 per square foot or less. These are quite possibly some of the best deals available in Harrisonburg right now. 
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My apologies for information overload! |
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I use FeedBurner for my RSS feed, and every few months the FeedBurner service will hiccup, causing my RSS feed to reset. Thus, anyone reading my blog via Google Reader, or any other rss feed aggregator would have seen 20 (or more) blog posts this morning --- they weren't all written this morning, they are from the last few weeks. I suspect that those of you who subscribe by e-mail will also receive a very lengthy e-mail with 20 blog posts today. My apologies that this FeedBurner error sent WAY to much information at you, most of it for a second time! | |
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Search for real estate deals using NEW Price Per SF tool |
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 Several exciting upgrades to my web site have been in the works, the first a convenient mortgage calculator, and now we have added the ability to search by price per square foot via the Power Search on my web site. Think about it for moment --- you've always been able to limit the price range, or your square footage range, but now you can limit your search results to those where you are buying at a particular price relative to the size of the home. A few potential applications:
Credit where credit is due: I didn't think of this new search tool all on my own -- the idea was born in a conversation with Amar Gogia at Scripture Communities. Thanks Amar! | |
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Web Site Enhancement - mortgage calculator |
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 I'm working on several exciting improvements to my web site, and this is the first. It's been a long time coming, as many of you have asked if there is any way to integrate an easy to use mortgage calculator along side the property listings. At last, the calculator is in place --- allowing you to quickly determine the principle and interest of your monthly mortgage payment. Enjoy, and let me know if you have any difficulties using it. | |
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Exciting web site changes are in the works! |
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 I'm getting my hands dirty --- working on some exciting additions to the property search section of my web site --- to let you learn even more about each property for sale. There are at least 5 upgrades I hope to roll out in the next few weeks --- stay tuned, and if you have any suggestions for improvements to my web site, please let me know! | |
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Introducing . . . HarrisonburgHousingToday.com |
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 You may have noticed a new masthead on my blog --- HarrisonburgHousingToday.com. For those who might wonder, I made this change to more accurately represent the information presented on my blog. It's the end of an era, I suppose, as for the first nine months of this blog, it was known as... "Coffee With Scott :: Scott P. Rogers' Caffeinated Real Estate Blog"  I decided that my blog's old identity suggested that this source of local real estate information was all about Scott. In reality, it's about keeping you informed with the latest market updates, analysis and commentary about real estate in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. One final coffee-related note --- as previously mentioned on my blog --- if you're interested in discussing any of the topics on this blog, or the details of your specific real estate situation, I am more than willing to treat you to a cup of coffee (or tea) at your favorite coffeeshop. Call, e-mail, or text me, and we'll set a day and time.... Call > 540.578.0102 E-mail > scott@cbfunkhouser.com Text > 540.578.0102 | |
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Can I search for homes on your blog? |
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 I have had several people ask me this lately --- people who are planning to move to the Shenandoah Valley, and have been reading my blog to better understand the local real estate market. These two blog readers asked whether they could search for properties for sale on my blog.Can you? You bet! From my blog, you can click on the "Searching" tab on the top menu bar. (Or, since you're reading this post, you can click on the search image to the right). My hope is that you'll find that searching for homes in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County has never been easier. We give you quite a few search options: sdfs
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If you are looking for more details on a property --- don't hesitate to ask --- it's quite simple to send you the detailed MLS datasheet |
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These days, most real estate web sites allow you to view properties listed by any agent or company in the area. My web site works this way --- when you are searching for properties, you won't just find properties being marketed by Coldwell Banker Funkhouser Realtors. But what you see on a Realtor's or Brokerage's web site is a subset of the information that is in the MLS (multiple listing service). Here's an example of what you would see for the property located at 409 Diana Court --- a spacious, like new duplex with 1900+ square feet on the south end of Harrisonburg.  But perhaps you would like more information about a property that you are looking at online. If so --- just e-mail me (scott@cbfunkhouser.com) or call me (540-578-0102), and I'd be happy to provide you with the fuller report on the property available through the MLS. Here's what that looks like...  The information you find on my web site, or any other public web site, is limited to the fields that our local Realtor association allows us to display on a public web site. The other details can certainly be helpful, so please e-mail (scott@cbfunkhouser.com) or call (540-578-0102), if you'd like to see the full report. OH --- and if you're looking for even MORE information, don't forget about the many online resources for researching properties in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. | |
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Have real estate questions? Get answers! |
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 You can certainly e-mail me (scott@cbfunkhouser.com), or call me (540-578-0102), but now you can also chat with me from my blog. Just look for my chat "widget" in the right column on my blog (similar to the image in this post). I'm not always online, but when I am, I'd be happy to talk to you about the Harrisonburg real estate market, the buying or selling process, or anything that would be helpful to you. I have already had a few great conversations with people over the past few weeks since I have added this functionality. One such person enjoyed that they could ask me a question rather anonymously. You can type your name in the bottom of the chat box (where it says "Your nickname") if you'd like, but you certainly don't have to. Sometimes we'll agree that it makes more sense to continue the conversation by phone or e-mail, but I hope you will feel welcome to use this chat functionality to get a quick answer to a question or to strike up a conversation about the market. | |
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Searching For A Home Online --- Which Web Site To Use!?! |
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 In a comment on a recent blog post, Josh stated:"So when I was searching for my place, I rarely used realtor's websites.I stuck to hrar and realtor.com. Do most of your home buyers find your listings through your website?" I find it fascinating whenever I have the chance to learn about which web site or web sites people use to search for homes in the Harrisonburg area. Here's why I find it interesting . . . Some people (like Josh) don't want to use a particular company or agent's web site -- they will often use www.hrar.com, or www.realtor.com -- but I'm not sure exactly why. In the past, you would only find that company or agent's listings on their web site --- but now most company and agent web sites will allow you to search all homes currently on the market. Josh (and others) -- help me out here . . . 1. Would you feel an obligation to use the services of a company or agent if you used their web site? 2. Do you wonder if you are really seeing all of the listings on their web site? 3. Do you wonder if the company or agent's listings will be given preferential ranking on their web site? 4. Do you find www.hrar.com, or www.realtor.com easier or more enjoyable to use for finding properties? 5. Is there something else that I am missing? | |
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NEW --- Search for Harrisonburg Homes Using Keywords! |
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 Have you checked out the power search on this web site? You can quickly and easily search for homes based on: - single family vs. detached - list price - bedrooms - bathrooms - square footage - age of home - number of acres - geographical area - elementary school - high school But now, you can also search by keyword! | |
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Scott Rogers
Funkhouser Real
Estate Group
540-578-0102
scott@funkhousergroup.com
Licensed in the
Commonwealth of Virginia
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