by Roberta Murphy In case you have never visited or participated in a blogging carnival, please allow me to extend a hand and introduce you to a dizzying world of fun, opinions and amazing information. I have participated several times in the real estate blogging carnivals and look forward each week to reading the winning entries. I imagine it takes huge effort on the part of the host to read through all…
by Roberta Murphy Luxury is booming and Wall Street is keeping a keen eye on how the rich are spending their wealth. And what better way to measure that hedonism than by creating a variety of indexes that track the shopping of the ultra-rich that we can call the Luxury Blingdex. The demand for four-figure handbags, five-figure baubles, six-figure cars, luxury resorts and travel, insurable art and heady wines has…
by Roberta Murphy There is little I can do to stop global warming, the melting of icebergs, rising sea levels and the inevitability of dandelions. But here are some big and small things I have implemented into our home and lifestyle to lessen the impact of our carbon footprint on this planet. 1. The biggy? I traded in a Mercedes 420 for a cool Camry Hybrid. I enjoy the cars…
by Roberta Murphy It seems nobody is immune from the power of the internet or the inevitability of progress. Zillow shook the real estate industry (and lots of homeowners) with last years unveiling of its near-instant online real estate valuations. The complaints came primarily from Realtors who feared the public would come to rely on Zillow Zestimates for home valuations and from homeowners whose property values were decimated by the…
by Roberta Murphy According to the latest from Dataquick, a record number of foreclosure notices have been sent to California homeowners during this past quarter, setting a new ten-year record. Why? Dataquick reports that œflat appreciation, slow sales, and post teaser-rate mortgage resets have contributed to these financial casualties. The San Diego Union Tribune reports that San Diego County endured 1,182 foreclosures from January through March, 2007 -or almost eight…
by Roberta Murphy Todays tragic massacre at Virginia Tech leaves us all wondering how such a thing could happen and what we might have done to prevent such a horror. And oddly, I find myself longing for a front porch swing. There is the predictable push for gun control, the demands for metal detectors on campuses, and more efficient lockdowns. I suppose these are all good and reasonable solutions, but…
by Roberta Murphy Peering into the future, it is nice to imagine a home that is smart in every sense–and inviting to all. Sunset Magazine and Popular Science recently team-conceived the Idea House, the House of Innovation , in Alamo, California. This intelligent $5 + million smart home provides a trajectory of design and technologies that will end up in homes of tomorrow. It is loaded with sustainable materials and…
by Roberta Murphy Disruptive technologies are a special favorite on this blog, and HouseFront is the newest to hit my desk. And it happened about twenty minutes ago, when I opened an email from James Eberhard, CEO of Housefront. The premise is simple. Want to know the value of a home? Follow these simple steps with your cell phone: 1. Text any address to 46873. 2. Open your results a few seconds…
by Roberta Murphy A recent study of publicly traded CEO homes found a correlation between the size of the CEO’s home and the company’s stock price. It may come as a surprise to some, but the larger and more luxurious the CEO’s home is, the poorer the company’s stock tends to fare. The study is an interesting one, with credit going to Arizona State Crocker Liu and New York University’s…
by Roberta Murphy Blogging has become a key marketing tool for real estate agents. Michelle Mowad, a talented writer for the San Diego Business Journal, called last week inquiring about real estate blogging and the impact it is having on our San Diego real estate business and life. We talked about Web 2.0 social networking sites like MySpace and how blogging is such a natural communications platform for real estate…
