March 2024 monthly note.   Published on Substack, and available by free subscription there. Archived here, but I have more confidence in the links I control than I do on someone else’s platform. Much as in real estate, better to build a business on your own real estate than on someone else’s. I started RealCentralVA in January 2005. I wrote the first monthly note on the TinyLetter (TinyLetter is going away/being deprecated in a month) platform February 2013. Transitioned to Substack in December 2020. If you’re interested in reading stories about real estate, Charlottesville and Albemarl ..read more

February 2024 Monthly Note. This month: timing the market, super-short market insight, contracts, boomers, specificity matters. Published on Substack, and available by free subscription there. Archived here, but I have more confidence in the links I control than I do on someone else’s platform. Much as in real estate, better to build a business on your own real estate than on someone else’s. I started RealCentralVA in January 2005.  If you’re interested in reading stories about real estate, Charlottesville and Albemarle real estate market insight and analysis, and other fun stories, plea ..read more

There’s lots of talk in the media/real estate space/coffee shops/Slack channels about the National Association of Realtors proposed settlement. Proposed. Rather than depend on others’ interpretations and spins, I’m reading the proposed settlement myself. Want to read it with me? NAR proposed settlement agreement – Download it here The post The NAR Settlement — Want to Read it With Me? appeared first on RealCentralVA.com ..read more

We’ve started doing quarterly conversations about the Charlottesville real estate market and I’m testing what works best for both reach and posterity of the information. I like being able to look back and see what I’ve been right about, and what I’ve been wrong about, and then learn from each. With that, two videos to start the week: Getting Better at What I Do Hire the right representation, know your market band as well as you possibly can. Walk through your house as if you’re looking at it for the first time. Pretend that you’re showing the house or you’re seeing the house for the first ..read more

I recorded a video this week with a colleague, Greg Slater, and we talked about the Charlottesville and Crozet real estate markets, and market data, and average and median prices, and inventory levels. This point is sticking in my head – good real estate agents help our clients in the home buying/selling process, and great ones do so with tremendous understanding, caring and empathy. We listen to and hear our clients, reassuring and validating the emotions that they feel — often in this market, those are feelings of frustration, fear, apathy. We acknowledge those feelings and guide and coa ..read more

When we started Nest Realty oh so many years ago, “no single agent dual agency” was one of our founding tenets. No Dual Agency. To my knowledge, we are the only real estate brokerage in the Charlottesville area stating definitively and publicly “No Dual Agency.” The Status Quo, in the form of the established political “leaders” refuses to eliminate Single Agent Dual agency, so we are choosing to lead by example. We believe that this is something the consumers want and need. I’ve had a tab open for months with the Virginia Disclosure that both clients need to acknowledge and sign should a s ..read more

January 2024 Note from Jim Subscribe here, if you are interested. A market-heavy January note. Like the note? Please share it with a friend. First – Assessments are almost out. They’re up. Think yours is high, low, just right? Curious if you could sell for that number? Ask me.   The steamer and the screwdriver I was talking to a potential seller client and we were discussing the things I suggested they do before going to market. They asked if they had to fix them (they do) because some buyers like fixer-uppers. My wife and I got a steamer recently. I came home and my wife had put it ..read more

Market data is fun. Beautiful display of data is useful. Market data + beautiful display *and* appropriate context = relevance. Nest Realty’s Annual Report is out, and it’s beautiful. Want a copy? I’ll gladly mail you one. (Just ask me) or download it here. For current context, in Charlottesville + Albemarle From 1 January to 12 February 2024, there were 145 new resale listings and 111 new contracts. For that timeframe in 2019, there were 226 new listings and 172 contracts. Being prepared, with great representation, whether as a buyer or seller, is *critical* in this market. Question about t ..read more

While the title reads “Charlottesville and Albemarle,” the following applies to Nelson, Louisa, Greene, Fluvanna. You’ve gotten your 2024 real estate assessments. What does it mean? It means that that is the value on which you pay your real estate taxes It means that you might be able to sell your home for that number. Or higher. Or lower. My answer in 2023, with 2024 updates Assessments are not a reflection of market value. They are a backward-looking assessment of what the market value may have been at the time the assessor looked at the house (most likely online, and not in person). Th ..read more

I loved this conversation. I asked a lot of questions, and learned an awful lot. It’s a discussion about residential solar, a fossil fuel company investing in renewable energy, and a lot more. Part of that “lot more” was Russ Edwards, Tiger Solar’s President, answer to “what detail do you sweat?” This was a great conversation with Russ Edwards from Tiger Solar and Greg Slater. We talked about solar – residential and some commercial, the sales process (and how they don’t do hard-sells) customer service, and a lot more. Here’s the Tiger Solar episode of Sweat the Details by Nest Realty Russ’ “d ..read more