Energy Efficiency Audits

This is an interesting article about changes Chico is looking at adopting to their energy efficiency program. They mention San Luis Obispo as already having their own but the only one I know about is the requirement for low flow toilets when selling a home.

http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_13793122

Busy Week

Whew….was there a holiday yesterday?? This week has been crazy busy. I had the National Association of Realtors send a film crew out from Chicago earlier this week to follow me around for a day (and taping it) for a video in their Masters series that will be on the Realtor website in mid-January.

We then had the www.540diegorivera.com listing go Pending Sale, then the next day the Buyer woke up with Buyers remorse and canceled the contract. So, back it went on the market only to have more offers come in and it’s now Pending again. And we only put that property on the market last Friday!

And then yesterday, I was out taking photos and video for a new condo listing we have coming in Paso Robles in a co-housing complex. It’s pretty cool and we should have that on the market either this weekend or early next week.

I’m now off to San Diego for the yearly National Association of Realtor conference. I’ll be there for the presentation of the Technology Award I’m a finalist for plus other meetings.

Yee-haw!

Restaurant Inspections

Speaking of restaurants…

Here’s where you can look up restaurant inspections.

http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/health/RestInspSearch.htm

mmmmmm….tacos!

Taco Roco on Broad Street (corner of Broad/Orcutt) in SLO has 99 cent Taco Tuesday. It starts after 3 pm and goes until they close. Pretty darn good and you can’t beat the price!

I know that there are other Taco Roco locations around but not sure if they all do the 99 cent Taco Tuesday special.

Rate Update

Mortgage rates ended the week roughly unchanged after a busy economic news week that included a Fed meeting, employment data and the extension and expansion of the home buyer tax credit. As expected, the Fed kept the fed funds rate unchanged at between zero and 0.250%. More importantly, the Fed made few changes in its policy statement, noting that “economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.” The statement noted that low inflationary pressures and high unemployment rates reduce the need to raise rates, however, many economists took these as key indicators for future rate hikes. Accordingly, the national Unemployment Rate moved up to 10.2% from 9.8% in September, a new 26-year high. On Friday, President Obama extended the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit to contracts that close by June 30, 2010. The bill also includes a $6,500 tax credit for home buyers who have previously owned a home for five years. Currently, the 30 Year Fixed sits at 4.625% (4.804% APR) and the 15 Year Fixed is at 4.250% (4.557% APR). Next week is light for economic data, with most eyes on the $81 billion Treasury auctions.

Recent Listing in Escrow

Our record for getting accepted offers within 30 days on our Premier Listings just went up to 12 for 12. One listing we put on the market last week

http://www.14650arthur.com/ in Atascadero

is in Escrow already.

New Arroyo Grande Listings – 2 Homes on 2.3 Acres

This property was just entered into the MLS about an hour ago and it’s a WINNER! Two homes on 2.3 acres. The second home was built in 2007. This property last sold in 2006 for $900,000 and that’s before it had the 1200 sq ft second home!

Details and 35 photos are ready to be viewed at www.540DiegoRivera.com.

The property will be on the MLS caravan this morning (Friday) from 9:30-12:30. The caravan is like an Open House for Realtors. Feel free to stop by during this time to view the homes and walk the park-like acreage. A Keith Byrd Team member at the property will be happy to answer any questions for you too.

Our VOW Link

I know some of you are anxious to search Solds and Pendings so here’s the link to get to the new search:

http://www.slocountyhomes.com/vow.html

I plan on adding a menu to provide a “one-click” to see recent Solds in a city.

When you go to the page, the default map is solds in San Luis Obispo over the last 30 days. If you try to get details on a property, it will ask you to register.

Some Hints:

- To search Pending (and Contingent) sales, click on the “Active Listings” Tab. Then at the bottom middle column (labeled “Property Features”) click on “Show More” and you’ll see where you can choose Pending, Contingent, and Actives.

- At the top of the map is a line starting with “Search Type”. If you want to search using a form and see the results in a list, click “County/City”.

- If you are searching our other MLS Searches and find a property you like, enter the MLS number into the VOW to see if there is any additional info on the property.

- You can save a Sold search and have email notifications just like you can for an Active search. How cool is it to have new Solds or Pendings automatically emailed to you?! This is even better than the “Hot Sheet” Realtors have access to on the MLS system.

- I don’t like the Foreclosures tab. You can do the same foreclosure and short sale searches with the Active Listings tab, and I think it’s easier.

Let me know if you have any questions about our VOW.

Search MLS Sold and Pending Listings

I’m excited to blog about our new MLS listing search that will allow you to search Sold and Pending listings. I just got it from the vendor and I’m testing it before I put it up on the site.

For years it’s been a challenge for me to provide Sold information because of MLS rules. The suit the Department of Justice had against the National Association of Realtors was resolved early this year which gave the green light for Realtors to implement what’s called a Virtual Office Website (or VOW).

Our VOW listing data will be updated at least once a day. So, if a property sells or goes pending sale the day before, you’ll be able to know the details the next day. This is a lot quicker than waiting for the public sold data to become available like Zillow and other sites use which can take weeks or even months before it shows up. Plus, there’s nowhere else to lookup Pending Sale information except from The Keith Byrd Team. You’ll also be able to look at the details of a Sold (or pending) listing and not just the sold date and price.

There is a set of VOW rules that we need to follow. The main rule is that a VOW is for those that have a lawful client-broker relationship. This means that our VOW won’t be available for anonymous searches like our current MLS searches are. We’ll still offer all the other searches we have but for access to the VOW (Solds, Pendings) you’ll need to register first and not be working with another Realtor. If you don’t plan to use The Keith Byrd Team, you’ll need to go ask your Realtor to provide you access to a VOW that they supply as part of their service to their clients.

I hope to post the link to the VOW by the end of this week (hopefully today if I get enough time to test everything!).