There are plenty of Luxury homes currently available in the Memphis area. Here  the most expensive homes on the market in the Memphis vicinity as listed in the Multiple Listing Service. Click on the pictures to check out the details. And, yes , of course, I would love to represent you if you would like to buy one [hint, hint]

NOTE:This showcase is dynamic. Bookmark and visit this post again for updates.

The most expensive homes in Memphis is a post from: Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog

• House Pricing Guidelines
  Probably a good rule of thumb from Jim the Realtor
• How can builder confidence improve, single family starts increase sharply, and new home sales be unchanged?
• High Student Loan Debt Hinders Home Buying
  Just one of the reasons potential first time buyers just aren’t buying.
• Home prices fall, but inventory levels improve
  In Memphis prices are falling, as well as inventory, but on the bright side, unit sales are on the rise. Check my post on January, 2012 sales numbers.
• FHA defaults up for ninth straight month
  Not good news for FHA. Will we see tighter restrictions on FHA loans in the future?

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Best real estate links for week ending February 21, 2012 is a post from: Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog

January Memphis real estate residential unit sales improved by 12.3% over January, 2011, with at total of 850 properties closed, according to MLS data including sales for Shelby, Fayette, and Tipton counties, according to the Memphis Area Association of Realtors  (MAAR).

For a breakdown of sales by area, download the entire January Memphis real estate sales report.

It’s good to see more activity in the Memphis market.  Hopefully this will encourage some of those who have been on the sidelines for a while to at least have a closer look at what’s happening.  As you will see  when you view the full report, inventory is dropping, which tightens the market some.  We are also noticing that median and average prices are continuing to fall.  I believe that , going forward, unit sales will continue to trend upward as we continue to see prices slide until distressed properties are dealt with.  Remember that real estate is hyper-local, so check the report for your area.  Your piece of the market might be doing quite well.

If you are looking for a knowledgeable agent who will fully represent YOUR interests, contact me.  I would love to work with you.  For comprehensive area real estate search visit Spake.com.

Memphis area real estate sales – January, 2012 is a post from: Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog

• Home remodeling expands in December
• Real Estate Weekly: Home builders brace for another rough year
• Sandicor Fires Another Round in the Listing Syndication War
  You will be hearing a lot about listing syndication in 2012.
• Home Sales See 8 Pct. Increase – Memphis Daily News
  Memphis real estate market off to a good start in 2012.
• Calculated Risk Goes All In – Housing Market Will Bottom In March 2012
  I have been saying the last few years that we need to see a definite bottom in the market before we can really start to recover.
• Leaving a real estate franchise to become an independent broker – AGBeat
  Will we see more brokers ending their affiliations with national and international franchises?
• Anti-gay, anti-trans Realtor terminated from Keller Williams – Loudoun Progress
• fromToday Show: How not to market your home online
  with Barbara Corcoran – My listings are highly visible on the Web
• On the “Value Add” of a Real Estate Agent

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Best real estate links for week ending February 14, 2012 is a post from: Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog

CC license Some rights reserved by steve loya via http://www.flickr.com

Not to many years ago real estate companies and agents strictly controlled their listing information.  When I entered the business in the mid-1990s, local listing information was posted bi-weekly in a book about the size of a city telephone book.  We guarded our MLS books, daring not to let them get out of our possession, under penalty of stiff fines from the local Realtor organization.  Cumbersome networked computer  systems were coming on line to access listing information; emailing listings was unheard of.  The customer had to come to the real estate office to view the magic screen.  And she could look at THE BOOK, but she better not ask to take it out of the agent’s sight.

Fast forward, not too many months – the MLS was totally online with lots of search options, automatic emailing of listings to customers, customizable hot sheets and options – “ain’t computers grand?” we thought.  Then the National Association of Realtors allowed a for-profit company to start Realtor.com, an open listing portal, featuring the MLS listings that local brokers provided, framed with ads.  Realtor.com realized they could rake in big bucks from agents dying to get into the new-fangled world of online marketing.  NAR could have created a national portal that benefited brokers and agents, as well as consumers, instead of picking their pockets.

Skip ahead to now.  I will leave some of the background, because my fingertips get tired when I type too much, but now we have not only Realtor.com, one of the 3 largest real estate search sites, along with Zillow and Trulia, but literally hundreds of other sites where consumers can search for real estate listings and agents can pay to be featured in hopes of picking up leads. And that’s not even counting the thousands of IDX (Internet Data Exchange) search engines you find on individual agents’ and brokers’ websites.   Let’s lump all those national sites  - the syndicators – together under a single name for the sake of clarity, RealTruZilla.

For a  while now broakers have been feeding and nurturing RealTruZilla, spurred on by all the free exposure they received for their listings.  What better listing pitch than to be able to tell a home seller that his home will be on hundreds of websites and viewed world wide by potential audiences in the hundreds of millions?  But some folks in the business feel that things have gotten out of hand.  Brokers and local real estate organizations are beginning to come to the realization that they are giving listing information to these for-profit companies  free, so that they, RealTruZilla, can make a profit by framing that listing data with ads.  Consumers love RealTruZilla’s nice displays, easy searches and powerful mobile apps.  Some even like RealTruZilla information better than the information they can get from the source, a local agent with direct access to the original MLS information.

Back in November, 2011 Edina Realty quit feeding the monster; and more recently via an impassioned video, Abbott Realty Group followed suit.  The Abbott video link will provide one side of the issue.  Real estate practitioners and thought leaders have been debating and rebutting Abbott’s position.  Here’s Jay Thompson’s post.  Now it seems like news is breaking daily in the Syndication Wars.  It will be THE real estate topic of 2012.

I don’t claim to be a real estate thought leader, debater, or real estate pundit, nor do I have any prediction on how things will go with the syndication thing.  You, my readers, seem to fall more in the consumer category, so I wanted to give you a little perspective into what is happening.   If you have been in the market for a home recently or currently, how much have you come to depend on realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, or one of the hundreds of listing aggregators out there.  Do you put confidence in the search results?  Do you ever act on the ads on those sites?  Join the conversation.  Your comments are always welcome.

Listing Syndication – What Do Consumers Think of ARG’s Decision?

RealTruZilla – love, fear and loathing for the real estate syndication monster is a post from: Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog

[Note:  I posted this recently, 12/27/11, but since then, activity seems to have increased on this scam.  At least some people are savvy enough to Google the properties and call the legitimate Realtor  - I got 20 calls on one of my scraped and scammed listings this week.]

This scam has been going on on Craigslist, and probably other sites for years, but it hit one of my listings yesterday.  Fortunately someone alerted me early that the listing was being offered for rent at about a third of market rent.  Of course it was a scam, perpetrated by someone off shore.  It generated 9 calls from my yard sign from people who had seen the ad and driven by the house, so, obviously, lots of folks search Craigslist for rentals and they all seemed to think they had found the ultimate deal on a rental.

I replied to the email address on the scam, and got back an email from “Kristina Kilgore” , who claimed to be the owner, written in poor English, with overseas phone numbers, the mention of Nigeria, and a Rental Application designed to get personal information.   At the end of the application, this:  ”Please do understand that, a refundable deposit of $600 MUST be put down first before receiving the keys and paper work from me as to secure the house for you while you go through.”

This scam is actually pretty transparent. It has been going on for quite a while.  Does that mean that it is successful enough that people are actually sending the deposits to foreign addresses to people they have never met,  to get a good rental deal on a property they have never been inside?

Craigslist provides scam warnings here.  Real estate listings all have a scam alert in the header which takes you to this useful information:

You can sidestep would-be scammers by following these common-sense rules:

• DEAL LOCALLY WITH FOLKS YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON - follow this one rule and avoid 99% of scam attempts on craigslist.
• NEVER WIRE FUNDS VIA WESTERN UNION, MONEYGRAM or any other wire service – anyone who asks you to do so is a scammer.
• FAKE CASHIER CHECKS & MONEY ORDERS ARE COMMON, and BANKS WILL CASH THEM AND THEN HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE when the fake is discovered weeks later.
• CRAIGSLIST IS NOT INVOLVED IN ANY TRANSACTION, and does not handle payments, guarantee transactions, provide escrow services, or offer “buyer protection” or “seller certification”
• NEVER GIVE OUT FINANCIAL INFORMATION (bank account number, social security number, eBay/PayPal info, etc.)
• AVOID DEALS INVOLVING SHIPPING OR ESCROW SERVICES and know that ONLY A SCAMMER WILL “GUARANTEE” YOUR TRANSACTION.
• DO NOT RENT HOUSING WITHOUT SEEING THE INTERIOR, OR PURCHASE EXPENSIVE ITEMS SIGHT-UNSEEN - in all likelihood that housing unit is not actually for rent and that cheap item does not exist.
• DO NOT SUBMIT TO CREDIT CHECKS OR BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR A JOB OR FOR HOUSING UNTIL YOU HAVE MET THE INTERVIEWER OR LANDLORD/AGENT IN PERSON.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

For more on this type of scam, see Jay Thompson’s post Anatomy of a Rental Scam for his in-depth follow-up with the scammer.

If you are looking for a rental home, beware of this Craigslist scam is a post from: Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog

• More Buyers Ready to Get Off the Sidelines?
  Good news for the housing market.
• Memphis residential real estate year-end report 2011 — Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog
• Investors buying with cash pressure home prices
• Mortgage loan originators still fear regulations the most ~ via Housing Wire
• Would Americans Trust Your Profession?
  Real estate agents still aren’t among the highly trusted.
• Matrix | Interpreting the Real Estate Economy
  Thinking of selling your house or have it on the market now? This is a must read.
• Jobs growth points to potential recovery in housing ~ via Housing Wire
• Morning Radar: Foreclosures in 2011 drop 35% ~ via Housing Wire
• Americans oppose elimination of mortgage interest deduction ~ via AG Beat
  Duh.

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The week’s best real estate links January 28, 2012 is a post from: Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog

According to eMarketer, US spending on online advertising will exceed spending on print advertising for the first time in 2012, and the trend will continue as advertisers find more value online.  Online advertising  spending in 2012 is predicted at $39.5 Billion, compared to $33.8 Billion for all print advertising.  By 2016, the projection is  $62B for online vs. $32.3B for print.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, more and more of us are getting news and information online.  Think of how much time you spend online – work, research, news gathering, social media, compared to the amount of time you spend with print media – newspapers, magazines.  I think it’s obvious that print advertising will not be making a comeback.

What’s your opinion?

Related Articles:
US Online Ad Spend to Close in on $40 Billion – emarketer.com
US advertisers to spend more on digital than print: study – breitbart.com
Online Ad Spending to Surpass Print for First Time in 2012 [STUDY] - mashable.com

More will be spent on online ads than print ads in 2012 is a post from: Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog

• How Kodak Squandered Every Single Digital Opportunity It Had
  We all have had our Kodak moments. Many of us Boomers shot thousands of frames of Kodachrome and Tri-X Pan before the days of digital.
• The Week That Killed SOPA: A Timeline
  Congress comes to its senses about SOPA / PIPA

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Today’s Hot Links – Real Estate, Memphis, Social Media January 22, 2012 is a post from: Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog

Earlier this week I posted  about the year-end residential real estate sales figures for 2011.   Will real estate be better in 2012?  Who knows?  A few pundits indicate consumer morale is improving.  We definitely have historic low mortgage rates.  The inventory I have shown lately has been of good quality and value.  The stage is set for a better year than 2011.

This is the first time I have ever made predictions.  We will return to this post this time next year to see how I did.  [Disclaimer: these are my opinions only and should not be used in making real estate decisions.  Always consult a licensed agent with a good reputation for real estate advice; and remember, all real estate is Micro-local.  What holds true for your community or neighborhood, may not hold true for mine]

Memphis Real Estate Predictions for 2012

1. Unit sales will increase significantly in 2012 – the demand has been pent-up for a really long time.  People are going to start buying houses to live in again.
2. Home prices will remain flat or decline slightly – it is going to take a while to cycle through the valuation thing.  Among the Zestimates,  appraisals, unrealistic sellers, foreclosures, and short sales, we will be struggling for some reality in valuation for a while.
3. Foreclosures will increase in 2012 – they were only slowed down in 2011 by government actions.
4. The Presidential election will have little or no impact on the housing market.
5. Real estate consumers will engage more in social media and online research than in the past, continuing to erode effectiveness of print information/advertising.
6. Consumers will demand more information via mobile devices.  Agents and companies will begin to realize the proper use and effectiveness of new technology, such as QR codes.
7. The government will dabble in the housing market again with another costly and ineffective program like the First Time Buyer Tax Credit a few years ago.
8. There will be more outcry from both sides of the aisle in Congress to cut back or eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction.
9. Housing in Downtown Memphis will make a major comeback.
10. Schools will be a bigger issue than ever for families purchasing homes.
11. Demand for condominiums throughout the city will increase.

OK, that’s my 10 predictions.  What are some of your predictions for Memphis real estate in 2012?

Joe’s Memphis Real Estate Predictions for 2012 is a post from: Memphis Real Estate Buzz Blog