Some of Arizona’s most Successful Agents call John Hall & Associates home.

Monthly Archives: April 2010

Blackberry Smart Phone Tips

by on Apr 29, 2010 | Careers and Training, Technology

Photo courtesy of Flickr user edans

After attending Technopalooza last month, I started to write an article about using the Blackberry.  Well, I finally finished it and it’s been published… on AAR’s blog.  It has some short-cuts and phone maintenance tips to help REALTORS® better use their blackberry devices. Click here to read the article.

The presenter of the class, William James, has an awesome website where he shares tips and tricks for lots of smart phones, not just the blackberry.  You can find his site here.

We’re moving JohnHall.com to WordPress

by on Apr 28, 2010 | Company News, REALTOR® Marketing, Technology

logo by: koka_sexton

…which also means we are redesigning JohnHall.com.  It’s been a fun learning opportunity as we design and convert our existing website over to the self hosted wordpress platform. Our conversion date will be May 13th. Of course we expect it to be a smooth flip of the switch that only results in seconds of downtime. (sarcasm? sarcasm.)  Our goal is to minimize the downtime, we’re just not sure how long it will take.

The switch should not affect the Intranet system – it’s not changing.  During our conversion the intranet should still be available at JohnHall.com/intranet.

Special thanks to the flickr users that set their image licenses to Creative Commons.  We’re taking full advantage of your generosity and photo skills.  We will be paying attribution from our about page.

Many thanks to Superlative Real Estate Websites for agreeing to work with our design deadlines and powering the home search and agent roster.

If you’d like a sneak peak at the new site – we’re still working on it here.  If you’re wondering which WP theme we’re using – Headway.

Moral of the story, please be aware from May13-May 15 there may some dust (or falling beams) from our construction project at JohnHall.com.  Thanks again for your patience as we improve our web presence.

Phil Sexton & Bill Evans

Create Videos With Zero Editing

by on Apr 27, 2010 | Careers and Training, REALTOR® Marketing, Technology

Last Saturday I attended Scottsdale Camp at Sky Song in Scottsdale.  I learned (and am going to share) 2 ways to create videos without having to do the tedious part of editing. (WooHoo!)  They should also fit into your budget – $FREE.99!!

First, youtube.com/searchstories.  Here’s my attempt to create something interesting.  No screenshots were harmed  in the making of this film. I did zero video editing to create this.  Simply type in search terms, check the box next to the music that you want and push publish.

Here’s my shot at it…


(h/t: Justin Mchood)

To be honest, this was the easiest video I’ve ever created. The hardest part was figuring out what to type in the boxes.

Next I learned about Animoto, the second no editing video creation tool. For this example, I decided to spice up normally boring virtual tours by creating a rock video version of our Scottsdale Virtual Office Tour.


(h/t: D. Patrick Lewis)

Not bad for an automatic tool!?!?  Alright, your turn.  Go get yourself a FREE youtube account and a FREE animoto account and start creating awesome videos!

Phoenix’s Bank Owned Home Numbers

by on Apr 6, 2010 | Buying, Real Estate Statistics, Selling

Tom Ruff of the Information Market posted March’s foreclosure numbers recently, which caught my eye regarding the REO market in Maricopa County.

Let me explain. March had 8045 Notices posted which was a 6% increase over February. While that may sound like bad news remember March had 3 more ‘business’ days and the 2010 numbers were 25% below March 2009.

The number of ‘Canceled’ Foreclosures was 3747-the highest month ever. More Short Sales and Loan Mods? (Probably) The Canceled numbers were 7% higher than 2/10 and 15% higher than 3/9. Again starting to sound like good news.

The banks completed 5556 Trustee sales, also the highest month on record. This may be attributed to the longer month and/or the end of a quarter. With the completed sales and the canceled sales, the month showed a 1314 drop in “Bank Owned” properties-the current Shadow Inventory. In fact the number of Bank Owned dropped 2634 for the quarter, the first drop for a quarter since Q1 2006. Wow some might be starting to think the ship is turning.

I did some personal study of the 16,342 current ‘Bank Owned’ properties. I found 4970 active in ARMLS; 384 AWC; 4524 Pending; and 203 Closed so far in April. That’s approximately 10,000 of the 16,000. Are the Bank Owned-but not on the market numbers growing? It appears so-Is that bad? Probably not. Remember the Fannie Mae program of ‘rent backs’ after foreclosure? Wouldn’t that lead to more ‘Bank Owned’ but not on the market?

Again thanks to Tom for his counting, reporting and explaining. It certainly helps to make some sense of what’s happening in today’s greater Metropolitan Phoenix market.

Greater Phoenix: March Real Estate Review

by on Apr 2, 2010 | Buying, Real Estate Statistics, Selling

Initial numbers are in for March. Yes March madness continues. Number of Closed Escrows for March is 8846, that’s a 16% increase over 3/09 and a 34% increase over 2/10. 2010′s YTD Closed figures show a 19% increase over 2009′s 1st Quarter numbers.

REO sales numbers are continuing to decline as a percentage of sales-39% of Closed; 34% of Pending; and 15% of Active listings. Short Sales on the other hand are increasing with 21% of Closed; 30% of Pending (or 3930); another 6585 in AWC status (89%); and 27% of Active listings.

The other noteworthy item is the number of Pendings and AWC’s. Total Pendings on April 1 are 13,190; and total AWC’s are 7429. That’s an awful lot of property in escrow. Let’s hope the AWC short sales get approved and closed.

I’ll comment on Prices at a later date since my initial review of closed sales found over $25 million dollars in sale price discrepancies.