Santa Barbara September Real Estate Sales

The numbers have been tallied, can I get a drum roll please, there were a total of 110 sales in the South County in September. Can you say I'm glad that is over. That is the slowest month of sales I can remember in the 20 plus years I have been here. I guess it shouldn't come as much of a surprise with everything that has been going on with the credit crunch and the negative news that has been spreading about real estate. The other bit of news that sort of softens the blow is that October of last year wasn't much better. I still am of the opinion that buyers should be getting serious NOW! There is plenty of inventory, prices have declined, rates are good, and sellers are willing to negotiate. If people are waiting to see what happens, I think they may be missing some good opportunities and may be part of the pack that comes out of the gate early next year competing for the most desirable properties on the market. There really weren't any areas of the South County that performed any better than others. Santa Barbara, Montecito, Carpinteria and Goleta were all down from last years number of sales. I will put up the North County numbers tomorrow so check back for those. While you are here you may want to check out my post about Active Rain. There is a ton of agent networking going on you may be interested in. See You In Escrow!

Is Realtor.com Worth The Money?

I just went to a presentation done by Realtor.com which promoted their enhanced marketing programs. I was a littel surprised at the turnout. There were probably about 60 agents in the room at the Doubltree. I will say that they certainly are a well run group that puts on a good presentation that is professional and informational. Being a person who works for a title company I had not been exposed to their programs in quite some time. It was very good to hear that their listings are featured on sites like MSN, and the Wall Street Journal. I would think it was also very good to know that they received 5.7 unique users per month. I would think it was also very useful to know that listings with multiple photos are viewed more often than ones without photos. The one thing that I really would think makes an agents decision difficult is there aren't any real guarantees that any of their plans will do anything but get you some exposure. It seemed like the same old sales pitch I can remember from Newspaper advertisers or Radio stations. The pitch was basically we put you in front of more potential customers than anyone else. If you spend more money (and in some cases it seemed like a lot of money) you can increase your exposure which will give you a better chance of capturing customers. The other approach they took was to give an agent some tools to impress potential listing customers with, which in turn should generate more listings. I would love to hear real world experiences that anyone is having to hear whether signing up for the Featured Homes, or Featured Communities Marketing Systems is worth the pretty price tag they are asking for. See You In Escrow!

Have You Checked Out Active Rain?

I have been holding off getting involved with this Real Estate Community. I'm not sure why, but maybe I was intimidated. There are a ton of members, and many of them are very active. I'm just getting my feet wet, but I see it as a place where agents can discuss many different topics. It would appear that information flows pretty freely between them as well. One agent helping another with marketing ideas or how to generate more referrals. I do see the occasional affiliate of which I am one. Many of them are using this community to network and educate the members on ideas or services that they run across. It is well organized and as a new member they even have a new members group. There is an active rain guide to help you with almost anything you might be interested in doing with your membership. The main focus of this community is blogging. There are over 51,000 members and at any given time usually thousands are online. Check it out and if you do decide to sign up you can use me as someone who referred you by clicking on the following link http://activerain.com/action/referrals/santabarbaraescrow I will receive some points that increase my ranking in their system if you do sign up using that link. Thanks!



See You In Escrow!