Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Great Time to Buy a Home!

This Sunday, April 26 The Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors will be hosting about 2,000 open houses! So why would THIS be a good time to buy? Well, First of all, Money Magazine
published a study that shows Cincinnati is one of six cities where property values are most likely to rise and least likely to decline over the next 12 months. Here are three more things to move your hiney off that fence:


  1. There are nearly 16,000 properties listed in the Cincinnati MLS…We've got plenty to choose from!
  2. Low Interest Rates = more buying power! Ok, duh! Rates won't stay here forever; in fact no one can guarantee they'll be this low come Sunday.
  3. Homeownership will always be a good investment. Owning a home does not go out of style…although what you put in it might. To be fair with this, buying a home means you plan to live in it and around here, you should plan to live in for at least 5 years or more.

Cincinnati has not seen huge declines in property value, although the impression of that certainly exists. True, property values have declined but it's nothing like what you'll find in Las Vegas, or California or New Jersey. These locations have seen DRASTIC upticks in property value and therefore will see an equal and opposite reaction in a recession. Locally our property values appreciate about 3% a year and do so pretty steadily. We'll see this decline now, but it will turn around. The question is, are you ready to take advantage of the market? Contact your local Realtor® to find out more.


And hey, come visit me at 9730 State Route 28 for my open house this Sunday April 26,2009 from 2-4pm. It's a great Cape Cod on an acre of property…You just may qualify for an $8000 tax credit when you purchase it!

Friday, April 17, 2009

Social Media Vs. Industry

Well, the first "Twillionaire" is #aplusk, referencing the twitter handle that is used by Ashton Kutcher; yes that Ashton Kutcher. He recently beat out CNN to be the first on Twitter to have over a million followers. Not bad, I suppose for someone sitting in their living room, streaming live video over the web, even if you are a celebrity. What compels me most about this recent struggle is the difference between how each uses Twitter. Ashton, challenging people like Oprah to help send mosquito nets to Africa and pulling it off, while CNN uses their Twitter account for news feed headlines. Upon digging you quickly learn that CNN only recently purchased the account from someone who had already built up a 900,000+ following and use it like that ticker tape that scrolls across your TV screen, telling you the news while you listen to other news. I've never met anyone who likes that by the way but rather than get rid of it they seem to be adding more…?

Real Estate is attempting to embrace Social Feeds like Twitter with some modicum of success, myself included. You can follow me as cjwood on twitter and find out what I'm tweeting about, it might surprise you and sometimes confuse you!

It's anyone's guess where social media will bring us…is YouTube doomed to fail as another web experiment? Is Web 2.0 going to end up as dorky as its title implies? (Hopefully, they won't call the next thing Web 3.0…I prefer something a little more exciting, and with a cape)! Am I doomed to continue to blog in obscurity…wait, don't answer that, but I do think I'll check my followers…maybe I even picked up a new stalker!