BlogArizona Category: Technology & ComputersThis page contains all BlogArizona posts related to Technology & Computers. Read a specific post by clicking on a title below, or scroll further down the page to read through all posts in this category.Friday, November 06, 2009They're Back... Zip Codes Come Back to AZ MLS!The Zip Codes Are Back! Thank you nice folks at Arizona Regional MLS (ARMLS®)!! Zip codes disappeared from AZ MLS sheets sometime in the past few weeks. I don't know for sure when the zip codes returned, but I noticed it yesterday, (ironically) right after I finished talking on the phone with another real estate agent who mentioned the missing zip codes! He was giving me an address and didn't have the zip code because it wasn't on his MLS printout! But now I'm happy to say that MLS looks like this again...
Posted by Shannon Hubbard, Arizona Real Estate Agent on November 6, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack Thursday, October 29, 2009Zip Codes Missing from Arizona MLSDear nice folks at Arizona Regional MLS (ARMLS®), What happened to the zip code? It used to be prominently displayed at the very top of the MLS printout (after the city & state where it belongs!). It looked like this...
It just disappeared in the past couple of weeks, so hopefully it won't be too hard for you to find it. I know you're usually very good about informing Realtors® when you make changes to MLS. So perhaps you did send out an email informing Realtors® the zip code would be disappearing soon. Unfortunately, I didn't get the memo. So here I sit wondering, what the heck happened to the zip codes? Please help. Thank you!
Posted by Shannon Hubbard, Arizona Real Estate Agent on October 29, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack Saturday, March 29, 2008Beware of Red Light Camera at Gilbert & McKellips in Mesa!A couple years ago when I had to go to driving school, I was told the cameras in intersections can catch you either speeding or running a red light. Some are set for red-light only while others are set for speed. But the cameras are all the same, it just depends on how they're programmed. Well apparently, the red light running camera at Gilbert and McKellips in Mesa has recently been re-programmed to catch speeders too. Don't ask me how I know this! :(
Considering the fees they're charging for speeding tickets these days, I don't know how the City of Mesa is losing money on the photo radar program. Perhaps this recent re-programming of cameras is an attempt to get a better return on Mesa's investment. Obviously, I have mixed feelings about that! As a Mesa resident and taxpayer, of course I want the city to keep the roads safe, and I want them to maximize the return on investment when they spend taxpayers money...but not at my expense! If you're wondering where other Mesa traffic cameras are located, the City of Mesa's website lists all the intersections with red light cameras, along with the locations of Mesa's photo radar vans. Also, here's some more info on Arizona photo radar tickets. Remember, slow down at the intersection of Gilbert & McKellips and drive safe! :) Related Articles you may also find interesting:
Posted by Shannon Hubbard, Arizona Real Estate Agent on March 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack Wednesday, November 07, 2007AZ Real Estate Blog has its Perks!Okay, I'll tell you up front that this post has absolutely nothing to do with Arizona or real estate. And in Dodge and Matchstick are doing a 'word of mouth' marketing campaign for the 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan. They selected fifty "influential moms" in the Phoenix area to test drive a fully loaded 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan for a week (and I mean FULLY loaded!). I'm not sure how I qualified as an "influential mom" when my own kids won't even listen to me. But for a free tank of gas and the opportunity to put a week's worth of mileage on someone else's vehicle, I'll let Dodge think whatever they want! So they brought me a brand new, fully loaded 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan all gassed up and ready to go. It had just under 500 miles on it when delivered (luckily it was past the break-in period so I could really test drive it!). I got to keep it for a week, and they encouraged me to drive it as much as possible. They even said I could let other people take it for a day or so (as long as they were 21 years old with a valid AZ driver's license). It was fully insured by Dodge's insurance, not mine. They showed me how to use all the features and gave me a list of phone numbers to call in case I had any questions or problems (of course it came complete with roadside assistance). They even left me a camera to take pictures of my adventures, and a list of games for kids to play in the car! All they asked is that I write a blog post about my experience afterwards. As a business owner myself, I have to give Dodge a great deal of credit. Asking me to write about my experience before they knew whether it was a good or bad experience was pretty gutsy. They're obviously very confident they have a great product. And why wouldn't they be confident. This van has everything you can think of. It has all the usual goodies - AM/FM stereo with CD, cruise control, tilt wheel, 3-zone AC/heater, alarm with door remote. And of course it has power everything - you can even open the back (hatchback) door and two side sliding doors with the alarm remote, or by using buttons located inside the van. You can also use the remote to start the van from a distance, to get it warmed up or cooled off ahead of time. From the driver's seat, I have complete control over every door, every window and basically every feature in the van. It has an awesome sound system, satellite radio, satellite TV, GPS navigation with voice recognition, two DVD/CD players and two TVs (both with video game hookups and wireless headsets), rear back-up video camera, a touch screen console, and my teenager's favorite feature - it's IPOD compatible! (complete with USB port for downloading music and pictures to the vehicle's 20GB hard drive). There are music controls on the side of the steering wheel, which makes it easy to change the song or turn up the volume without taking your eyes off the road. The power seats adjust in every way possible. It has sliding doors on both sides, which is much more convenient than the traditional vans that just have a sliding door on one side. It even has good drink holders! One feature that I hadn't seen before which is pretty cool is the power adjustable foot pedals. That's right, not only can you adjust the seat, but if you have longer or shorter legs than usual, you can move the foot pedals back or forward to allow total comfort while driving. And speaking of driving, this van drives great. Of course, most new vehicles drive great. But this van doesn't feel like a van at all. It handles like a much sportier vehicle. It corners well and has more than adequate get-up-n-go. In fact, my husband and I bet on the engine size. I said it must have a V8 as quick as it is, but he said it probably has a V6. I lost that bet - it's a very fast V6. I can't really comment on the gas mileage since I drove it like I stole it (just kidding Dodge!). Actually, I don't know how big the gas tank is, but the computer readout on the dashboard said I was averaging 14.2 miles per gallon. This van also has a very nice turning radius. It's very easy to park even in somewhat tight spaces, and it can make a U-turn just about anywhere. I really enjoyed driving it. But anybody who wants to impress me with a car definitely has their work cut out for them. Since I spend quite a bit of time in my car, I'm accustomed to driving some pretty decent vehicles. To be fair to Dodge, I should give a little background information about the vehicles to which I was comparing this van. I currently drive a newer model Lexus SUV, and sometimes I drive my company's Hummer for business purposes. My last car was a new BMW 528i. Before that I had a lightly used BMW 525i. Before that, I had a lightly used Nissan Maxima. Not only do I generally buy foreign cars, but I've also never really considered myself a minivan type person (although I would consider a van, and I did drive a Toyota minivan several years ago). My husband, on the other hand, has always driven a truck and Dodge is his favorite. We've owned several Chevrolets and Dodges, and the Dodge trucks we've owned have always been more comfortable and more reliable than Chevrolet trucks. But the new Dodge Grand Caravan takes comfort to a totally different level. In fact, if I had to summarize the Dodge Grand Caravan in 2 words, they would be: comfortable and functional. It's not just the features that make this van great, but the way in which they're organized. It has two captain's chairs in the middle row, and a 3-seat bench in the back (all leather and power, of course). The middle and back row seats can be re-arranged in every which way possible. You can turn them towards each other and put a table (included) in between (so it's kind of like sitting in a booth in back). You can fold & stow away the third row of seats, or I think you can even take them out altogether to haul stuff (but I didn't try). You can even reverse the third row seat so that it faces backward for tail-gating. There are lights and AC vents for each passenger, so everybody can get comfortable. There are even several regular 110V outlets like in your house. So the teenage daughter can finish curling her hair on the way if you're running late! Each window has a sunscreen that you can pull up to block the sun (very necessary in Arizona - my kids loved that feature). When not in use, they retract back into the door where they aren't really visible. This vehicle is extremely well organized, and again, very comfortable for the whole family. I took some pictures of the van's interior, but they didn't turn out nearly as well as the pictures on Dodge's website, so I'm not posting them! Dodge targeted moms with this campaign, but I would also suggest another target audience - real estate agents. This van is perfect for driving clients around town. You can fit seven people very comfortably, you have GPS navigation to find your way around, and the two TVs can have two different movies or video games playing at once to keep the kids happy. With all the technology and features, this van could easily be an office on wheels. And even the pickiest client would be happy to go house hunting in this van. In short, Dodge's 2008 Grand Caravan is the perfect real estate agent vehicle! The only complaint I can think of with this van is that there are too many features and buttons (not really a complaint, more of an observation!). Most of the features were very user friendly and easy to use, but there were a few things I couldn't figure out. I'm sure it was user error and in time, I would learn to use them (so Dodge, how about one more week with the van? Or heck, how about a free year with it - I'll even write another post!). Both of my kids loved it and didn't want to give it back. My (almost 16-year old) daughter even asked if I would buy her a van like it. Surprised at my somewhat spoiled teenager, I responded, "You'd want to drive a mom-mobile? Your friends would make fun of you if you drove a minivan." And she said, "Yeah they would, until they saw the inside. Then they'd say, let's take Sara's van!"
Posted by Shannon Hubbard, Arizona Real Estate Agent on November 7, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack Thursday, June 14, 2007AZ Real Estate Blogs & Bubble Bursters
The article did mention some Valley bubble bursting blogs, if you consider those to be real estate blogs. These are the bloggers who cheer for decreasing home values and hope for a total collapse of the real estate market. They wish hateful things on all who own real estate - investors and average homeowners alike. I believe some of them have more of a political agenda, some have a business motive to hate real estate, while others are just bitter renters who were priced out of the market during the last boom. Regardless of the motives, the amount of hate you find on these ‘bubble burster’ blogs is just WRONG, and it makes me question everything they post. While some of the facts they tout may indeed be true, it’s hard to give any credibility to someone that’s hoping the real estate market will crash so that all property owners will be financially hurt. Normal people do NOT think this way. As soon as I spoke with Glenn Creno, I suspected the article would focus on these bubble blogs. He asked me several questions about them, and he was really curious why they were so hateful and what kind of person could seriously root for a collapse of the housing market. So Jay, Greg, et al, don’t be offended your blogs weren’t mentioned -somehow I don’t imagine you’re losing sleep over it :). You didn’t fit his agenda. In fact, if anybody should be bothered by this article, it’s me. BlogArizona was listed just beneath the Housing Panic blog, under the heading, “Critical of the Market”. But at least the ‘chatter’ on BlogArizona.com “is more subdued” than the Housing Panic blog. Seriously, there are more important things in the world to worry about than some Arizona Republic article. As one of the comments on azcentral.com reminded me, Paris Hilton’s in jail. I have to go watch the news and see how unfairly she was treated today!
Posted by Shannon Hubbard, Arizona Real Estate Agent on June 14, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack Wednesday, April 25, 2007HouseFront Offers Home Values by Text MessageMove over Zillow... HouseFront.com offers a new AVM you can easily take with you! If you have a cell phone with text messaging, you can text the address of any U.S. home to 46873 (HOUSE). Within a minute or so, you'll receive a text message with all kinds of information about that home, including:
The information you actually get may be different based on the area where the house is located (it depends on availability of public record information). But this is a great tool for when you're out looking at houses. Perhaps you see an interesting property for sale that wasn't on MLS and you or your clients want to know more about it. You can call the number on the 'For Sale' sign, which usually results in a voice mail and is not helpful. Or you can use your cell phone and HouseFront.com to find out the square footage and other information immediately, without viewing the home or the MLS sheet. Even without the list price, the square footage and other data provided by HouseFront can help you determine whether or not that property is a possibility worth following up on. I would guess that HouseFront.com will be offering 'for sale listings' similar to Zillow, so perhaps the list price will also be provided in the text message if the homes is for sale. Many of us have cell phones or PDA's with internet access these days. But with such a small screen and slow load time, most websites are pretty useless to mobile users. Even with higher broadband speeds, I rarely use the internet on my Treo unless I need directions while I'm away from home. Or if I have a really long wait somewhere, I may use it to watch the news or look at the stock market. But text messaging gets used by many. In fact, I read an interesting statistic about the number of adults who use text messaging - I can't remember the exact numbers, but it was a staggering percentage and the article said that adults, NOT teenagers, are the fastest growing demographic when it comes to text messaging. I always thought texting was more of a teenage fad (it is in my house anyway - my kids literally text thousands of messages per month to their friends - I don't even know how they type so fast on the cell phone keypad! I just thank God for unlimited text messaging plans!). But like Zillow.com, the real test of how useful HouseFront.com will be is accuracy. I did a test of my old house in Gilbert, AZ and it seems pretty accurate. I expected it to give me the same values as Zillow since they both rely on public records data. However, I was surprised to see that HouseFront.com came up with a lower, closer to reality value than Zillow did. I also tested my current home in Mesa, which is 4301 square feet, but public records shows it as 2939 square feet (they didn't assess the basement square footage for some reason). Because of the incorrect square footage, Zillow's Zestimate is incorrect by approximately $150,000. HouseFront.com also has the incorrect square footage, number of bathrooms and bedrooms. Yet, somehow it still came up with a closer to realistic value range. It was higher than I think my home is worth, but closer than Zillow. I then tested a few homes that don't even come up in Zillow, and HouseFront.com gave me value ranges very close to what I came up with based on MLS comps. I'll have to play with it a little more before I can say for sure that it's more or less accurate than Zillow. And of course, no AVM will ever be able to replace a Comparative Market Analysis provided by a real person (i.e. your friendly neighborhood Realtor®!). Most people thought Zillow was pretty cool when it came out, and if it was accurate, I agree that it would be pretty cool. But Zillow's Maricopa County "Zestimates" are usually not accurate in my opinion. In fact, I believe Maricopa County Zestimates are significantly inaccurate more often than not. I believe this is because they get their information from public records. The Maricopa County Assessor's Office has a several month delay in recording real estate sales, which is troublesome since you should never use a comp that's more than 3 months old when determining the price of a home. For more information, here are some other BlogArizona articles related to Zillow and AVM's:
Posted by Shannon Hubbard, Arizona Real Estate Agent on April 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack Wednesday, April 18, 2007Zillow vs. Arizona Board of AppraisalThe blogosphere is buzzing this week with stories of the two Cease and Desist letters that Arizona's Board of Appraisal sent to Zillow. Apparently, the Arizona Board of Appraisal is accusing Zillow of offering 'appraisals' in Arizona without the proper licensing. To me, this sounds like something they could resolve by simply tweeking the verbage and/or more prominently displaying their Disclaimer and definition of Zestimate. If it's about confused consumers that think Zestimates are appraisals, obvious disclosure that Zestimates are NOT appraisals should suffice. Personally, I think Zillow could be more accurate and I think they should re-assess their accuracy rating (perhaps break it down by area since Zestimates for some geographical areas may be more accurate than for other areas). For example, I don't think Maricopa County Zesitmates are particularly accurate - Zillow has consistently and severely overpriced the Arizona homes that I've checked. But I think consumers, not the Arizona Board of Appraisal should be the ones to demand changes to Zillow. And if it's really about the consumer, I think the Arizona Board of Appraisal will find a simple yet reasonable compromise to allow Zillow to continue offering Arizona Zestimates. But many are claiming that Zillow is being treated unfairly simply because of their success. Many other websites also offer home value estimates, as do many Arizona real estate agents and brokers (CMA's). Yet the Arizona Board of Appraisal has not sent Cease and Desist letters to any of them. However, it's important to note that A.R.S. 32-3602 (1) specifically states that licensed Arizona real estate agents and brokers do NOT need an appraisor's license to offer:
In other words, Arizona law allows real estate agents and brokers to give CMA's and Opinions of Value without an appraisor's license. There are also several other exceptions to the Arizona law requiring real estate appraisors to be licensed. When Zillow was first launched, it was rumored that Zillow's CEO Rich Barton wanted to transform the way people buy and sell real estate, much like Expedia.com (also founded by Rich Barton) transformed the way we buy airline tickets. To take it a step further, many thought Barton's plan for Zillow was to eliminate real estate agents (and their commissions) the way that Expedia.com pretty much eliminated travel agents. Perhaps now Mr. Barton and Zillow will be interviewing Arizona real estate brokers to be on the Zillow staff, so that they can continue to offer
Posted by Shannon Hubbard, Arizona Real Estate Agent on April 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack Friday, April 13, 2007BlogArizona.com Welcomes the Arizona Mortgage Guru!Those who read BlogArizona.com regularly have probably noticed that I myself have been a blog mute over the past few months! To the many people who read BlogArizona.com each day, I sincerely apologize for my absence. Of course, there's no excuse to neglect your blog :) But I will say (in my defense and in defense of the AZ real estate market in general) that I've been crazy busy lately! No matter what the newspaper or other media may say, BUYERS ARE BACK TO THE ARIZONA REAL ESTATE MARKET! That's why I haven't blogged lately! Now that we've established that the Arizona "real estate bubble" is still not bursting, I want to welcome Shailesh Ghimire to BlogArizona.com. Shailesh is the Arizona Mortgage Guru and a local Home Loan Expert. Shailesh and his wife Aimee are a team at CTX Mortgage, serving the Greater Phoenix area. If you've read Shailesh's first BlogArizona post or visited his blog, I think you'll agree that Shailesh will make a great addition to BlogArizona.com. I have no doubt that his posts will add interesting and current content that BlogArizona readers will enjoy. I also want to say that while I haven't posted much lately, I have been working on some new upgrades/features for BlogArizona. These improvements will be added over time, and that's all I'm saying so you'll have to keep checking back to find out what they are! BlogArizona.com is also looking to add new Contributors. Here's more information if you or someone you know is interested.
Posted by Shannon Hubbard, Arizona Real Estate Agent on April 13, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack Wednesday, August 30, 2006BlogArizona.com Among Top Real Estate BlogsBiggerPockets.com recently put together a list of the Top 35 Real Estate Blogs, and of course, BlogArizona.com was on the list! BiggerPockets.com considered real estate blogs for their Top 35 list based on several factors including frequency of updates, as well as how unique, timely and relevant the blog's content is. Considering the thousands of real estate blogs that are out there, BlogArizona.com considers this an honor! But being named as a top real estate blog is not new to BlogArizona.com. Not only was BlogArizona.com one of the first real estate blogs in Arizona, but it has consistently been listed among the top blogs and real estate sites. So whether your buying, building, selling, renting or just want to learn a little about Arizona, be sure to come back to BlogArizona.com regularly! Posted by BlogArizona BlogMaster on August 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack Wednesday, August 16, 2006Real Estate Professionals Get Scammed TooUnfortunately, the public is not surprised when they hear a story about someone getting scammed in a real estate deal. In many cases, I'm ashamed to say, a dishonest real estate agent is involved. But lately, I have also seen many instances where the real estate professional is the one being scammed. For example, not too long ago in Arizona and New Mexico, there was somebody claiming to be associated with the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. Apparently, he wanted to buy several very expensive houses. He was asking real estate agents to arrange and pay for hotels and pay for meals while they put contracts together. He put several houses under contract but never went through with the deals. The Arizona Department of Real Estate put out this April 19th Bulletin on it. It cost not only the real estate agents' time and money, but it damaged several sellers who wasted time (and time is money, especially in real estate!) taking their homes off the market for no reason. I also regularly receive real estate agent specific solicitations from businesses trying to scam me into buying this or that. I don't mean advertisements, I mean the kind of solicitation that attempts to "trick you" into buying something without really letting you know what you are agreeing to. But until now, I had not heard of any scams that singled out home inspectors. Below is an email that my home inspection company, Homewerx Home Inspections, recently received from someone that I consider to be among the dumbest con artists around. For your amusement, I copied and pasted the email below:
So, let me analyze this. I got an email from some guy I don't know, who can't write, that wants me to send him my home equity line of credit account number. And the only phone number given is in Europe. Well, I don't want to waste my money on a long distance call so I'll just forward him all of my account details by email...NOT! Okay "Gerry", put the crack pipe down for a minute. Does "Gerry" really expect people to 1) believe someone this stupid has the money to buy 9 houses, and 2) email him their home equity line account numbers? And how hard up for business would someone have to be to even consider this? First of all "Gerry", my company accepts cash, check, money order, VISA or MasterCard. That's it. For an additional fee, we will gladly bill escrow for most clients, but not for "Gerry"! I consider our payment options to be pretty flexible, but no HELOC option - sorry! And assuming I had one, I would never allow any Client to transfer money into or out of my personal home equity account (HELOC). Besides the obvious stupidity of giving out the account number, it would be co-mingling business and personal funds, which is not how my company or any other legitimate company operates. Sorry "Gerry"! So the moral of the story here is never trust anything you receive by email. In a normal day, I receive several hundred emails, and my spam filter deletes several hundred more. Most of the ones that do get through to me are deleted without being opened. Because of virus and spyware risks, I don't open emails unless they are from someone I know. Remember, scam artists are everywhere, especially in your email inbox!
Posted by Shannon Hubbard, Arizona Real Estate Agent on August 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack |
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