State of Market / Website Work / Live Chat
A: Take it for whats it worth, as things are starting to pickup a bit. Nothing to go crazy about and perfectly normal for wall street bonus season. While caution is still there and it remains to be seen how sales volume will do for the next few months, it certainly is nice to see any signs of a pickup. I usually wait 7 days or so to see if it holds, and it certainly has. Many colleagues also reporting same pickup in calls/open house traffic/showing requests for their listings. For me, I am working with mostly buyers until my new listing gets up and they have started to get very active.
Still early but I figured you may want to know this. Certainly don't look at this as a reason to go way over ask in a bidding war; continue to stick to what works for you and what you can afford.
I'm also about to start some website work and relaunch the live chat tool, and my buyer and seller services pages. I'll go back to holding live chats from 10AM - 11AM in the morning for you guys, or so, but if I'm not online its because I'm either super busy or out on appointments.
I was considering adding some new content for you guys too. Would you have any interest in me integrating:
a) neighborhood guides & info; school info, restaurants, nearby shops, etc..
b) contracting directory + reviews; breaking down all sorts of avail contractors in the boroughs and reviews of contractors
c) subway directions tool
d) other tool...?
Feel free to email me at nrosenblatt + "at sign" + halstead + "dot com" your thoughts or post a comment below on what you would like to see here on urbandigs.com. I am currently orking on real time data tools and other analytical tools for buyers/sellers. I expect a product to be ready near Fall of 2008.
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Comments (11)
I would love to see the neighborhood guides!
Posted by JWS | January 16, 2008 2:15 PM
noted...thx! yea I think that would be a nice tool too, I just hope the partner who could supply the data is accurate and of high quality
Posted by Noah | January 16, 2008 2:19 PM
I've worked with a couple of folks on their websites. My advice would be stick to your core competencies. Tools to help buyers and sellers. Whilst neighborhood guides would be good if done really well. e.g. details about schools etc.. it would only be useful if they were specific aids to the buying selling process. e.g. school areas which can add to the value of property. If I want to know about Italian restaurants downtown I'll look at zagat or Time Out etc..
Posted by Anonymous Banker | January 16, 2008 3:15 PM
How about a guide collating data on mortgages specific to NYC? Typical rates and trends over time?
Posted by Anonymous Banker | January 16, 2008 3:16 PM
I have had a hard time finding NYC contractor reviews on the web. I believe this would be a significant and useful addition, presuming you don't end up with a bunch of self promoting contractors as the posters.
I second the NYC specific mortgage information. It is not easy to cull current rates off the web for co-ops as most bank websites force you to contact them for this property type.
Neighborhood information and subway directions are pretty freely available at broker websites and google. I don't believe these would be effective additions to the site.
Posted by RE Investment Banker | January 16, 2008 3:58 PM
Thanks for the unbiased front line reporting Noah...please continue to keep us informed of this type of information that's hard to get.
Posted by Steve | January 16, 2008 4:25 PM
Perhaps it might be useful to provide a link and directions to show people how to go into free ACRIS service and look up the previous sales records for properties... this is something I always do before going to an open house, but few people I talk to know how to do it (including brokers)
Posted by todd | January 16, 2008 4:46 PM
Contractor reviews would be very helpful, as would NYC specific mortgage information. I think they both tie in nicely to your mission and don't seem to exist anywhere else. Both tools would come in handy right NOW!
Neighborhood guides would be nice, but it's already being done, and done well by a bunch of others.
Posted by jay | January 16, 2008 6:08 PM
great stuff..this helps..Thanks guys..keep it coming if you have any thoughts on future tools!!
Posted by Noah | January 16, 2008 7:09 PM
Noah, I'd love contractor information too, but I really wonder if you are setting yourself up for some nasty flamewars or worse. All of us have a sad contractor story - and sometimes there is just one job that goes bad (or one employer that IS bad). How will you protect yourself if a really bad review comes in and a contractor has an issue with it? Is there any safe way to moderate or verify information without it being a he-said/she-said???
Susan
Posted by Susan | January 18, 2008 2:29 AM
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