A big thanks to REALTOR® Bob Morris for organizing John Hall & Associates’s REALTORS® to answer phones from 1pm – 5pm on Labor Day during the MDA Telethon.

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Just a note that we’ve also updated our Maricopa County Foreclosure chart.

For those of us that survived July’s real estate market, we need to know how August treated us.  August showed a 7% increase in number of sales (7525 vs. 7021).  But what’s happening to prices…?  They did continue their decline.  Mike Orr wrote a couple of nice articles on prices in August.   Check them out @ www.cromfordreport.com.

Let me give you the numbers and then some thoughts on where they are going.  The month to month Average Sales Price (ASP) is down 6% to $164,900; Median Sales Price (MSP) is down 4% to $120,000; and Price per Square Foot ($/SF) is down 6% to $85.  These are significant drops for a 1 month period.  Distress properties (REO’s and Short Sales “SS”) make up 69% of the sale numbers, with SS making up 32%.  But the majority of the price decrease is attributable to Normal Sales, i.e. not Distress.  Here are the comparisons from The Cromford Report.

So why did this happen?  According to Mike, “the overall price decline is primarily caused by two main factors: a steep fall in the sales prices of Normal listings over $300,000 and the relative scarcity of Normal sales in August, particularly higher end homes. We saw only 91 Normal sales priced over $600,000 compared with 142 sales the month before.”

So don’t expect to hear many ‘rosy news stories’ this month.  Also remember that we will start to hear about the market’s dismal performance in July.  Here we go with the Consumer confidence factor again.

The foreclosure numbers should be out in a few days and I’ll update you on the market when I receive them.

Have a great month!

Jim Sexton

Once logged into the Arizona Association of REALTORS®’s website you can also watch John Foltz, Martha Appel, Jerome King, Jan Leighton, and Paula Serven share their advice. Thanks to all the volunteers and to AAR for producing this series.

1.  DND2

When you see this new acronym next to an input field, it means Do Not Disclose or Display to anyone who is not a member of ARMLS. (details)

2.  Alarm Codes, Gate Codes, Mech-Box Codes

These are new input fields.  They are all marked DND2.  Use them, not the Remarks section for these pieces of info. (details)

3.  Remarks Choices

You now have 3 options; private, public, and semi-private.  Semi-private is for instructions that can be shared with clients, but wouldn’t be used in typical marketing.  Examples include anything that could be disclosed at COE or various buyer incentives. (details)

4.  MLS Connect

ZipForms and Flexmls now get along better than ever.  They have doubled (from 23 to 47) the amount of fields that are mapped from Flexmls to ZipForm.  (Read more about MLS Connect.)

5.  Pay Your SUPRA Bill

It’s time to head down to an ARMLS Support Center and swap your DisplayKey for an ActiveKey.  Yes, they are going to want you to pay the $169 annual renewal fee when you do this. (Support Center Locations)

6.  PPI is Looking Up

ARMLS’s Pending Price Index predicts a dip in average and median sales prices in September and October, but then they head back up in November. (details)

7.  Flexmls Auto-Emails Expire

Be sure to let your clients know that if they do not open the flexmls auto-search emails for 90 days, the emails will stop. (details)

8.  ARMLS Learn-a-Thon

Remember the technopalooza classes that were P-A-C-K-E-D?  So does ARMLS.  Because of this, they are going to bring you quality classes more frequently.  Hence Learn-a-Thon.

9.  IDX and VOW Changes

Sellers can now choose whether their listing is displayed on web sites that allow automated values and/or listing comments.  REALTORS® can now choose to exclude listings on their web sites based on cooperative compensation.  Seasonal Furnished Rentals is now an allowable property type for IDX and VOW sites. (details)

Consider yourself all caught up! 

STAAR night is a really fun evening of entertainment and a wonderful opportunity to see REALTOR®’s “other talents” and enjoy some time together.

We are trying to recruit a bunch of talent to make this as successful as the previous years. Our goal is to raise $100k this year.

The evening is an event to raise money for the HUTCH fund which is a fund that helps REALTORS® who are in financial crisis. The fund will step in to help ease some of the financial burdens of the REALTOR® during the period of crisis.

Take care,

Robyn Robertson
www.robynrobertson.net

That’s exactly what we tested yesterday morning at the Paradise Valley Broker Meeting… and it worked!!  If you logged into the intranet between 8 and 10am, you may have noticed the video on the home screen.

Utilizing ustream.tv, we’re able to live stream our Paradise Valley Broker Meetings so ALL our REALTORS® can participate, not just the ones who can squeeze into the Kiva Room.

Next time, we’re going to move the camera back, repeat questions from the crowd, and be clear on which website is up on the screen so it’s easier to follow along at home.  Our next broadcast is scheduled for September 28th at 8:30.

We’ll be sure to remind you as we get closer!

The eKey service for iPhones is in place of the new ActiveKeys.  You wouldn’t use them both – pick one or the other.

To give you an idea of cost, ActiveKeys are $169.52 billed yearly.  The Basic iPhone ekey application is $15.37 billed monthly (15.37 x 12 = 184.44) plus a one-time cost for the SUPRA eKey Adapter of $54.95.

Right now the basic service is all that is available, but SUPRA will be releasing a professional service later this year – more about the features.

Thank you Scottsdale Scott for starting the iPhone/Supra conversation on the intranet.  To answer your question from the Scottsdale office meeting – yes couples can share the adapter.  They have to have individual Apps and iPhones though.

“Did you see the article in the paper this weekend?”

“No, but I saw people talking about it on twitter and facebook on Friday!”

That’s exactly what happened with the recent Arizona Republic article Online marketing key to selling home.

This particular article caught his attention because it included 3 REALTORS® from John Hall & Associates (Dru Bloomfield, Leif Swanson, and yours truly) plus Jay Thompson and Don Mertes.

If you didn’t get a chance to read it – check it out!  Don’t miss the 5 Questions to Ask Your Agent.

Necessary Hard/Software for Video Email:

• Webcam (which is built into her laptop)
• Microphone (which is built into her laptop)
• Eyejot.com ($FREE.99 web tool)

When a new client contacts her she’s quick to introduce herself with a custom recorded video message using her free account from eyejot.com.  I asked if she would record a custom message for this blog post and she happily agreed.

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Before you curse new technology, please be aware we first mentioned eyejot.com on our blog 2 years ago!  Once tech tools like this start to surface in the field, I feel it’s good to bring them to your attention again.  If you sign-up for an account, feel free to record us a message and paste the link in the comments section!

Thanks Deidre – good lookin’ out!