John Hall & Associates - Phoenix Real Estate Brokerage

We made the list!  The Phoenix Business Journal recently published their 2008 Book of Lists.  They rank practically every category of business in Phoenix.  In their most recent Book, John Hall & Associates is ranked 4th for Local Residential Sales Volume.  We have been holding strong in that position, coming in 4th last year as well. 

The List reports that John Hall & Associates had 1.36 billion dollars of sales volume in 3,821 transactions done by 741 real estate agents working out of 4 branch offices where a total of 35 management and/or support staff work… just in case you missed it.  And, although we didn’t submit to the REALTOR® Magazine list, we’re happy to know we would have ranked 83rd in the country for sales volume.

Not bad for our locally owned brokerage.

On June 1st, Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) sent out annual bills to over 36,000 members.  They gave all the recipients until July 8th to get their payment in before shutting them off.  Even with over a month to pay, last Tuesday evening ARMLS created minor heart attacks across the entire Valley of the Sun. 

Forethoughtfully, Bob Bemis bumped up his call center staff on the following days expecting a barrage of phone calls from agents wondering what had happened.  They were right, on the 9th and 10th ARMLS reinstated 1,358 members and expect to reinstate another 1,300 before the wave passes. 

All in all - they are anticipating a 15% reduction of membership to about 31,000 active members.

The ARMLS listing database that is.  Nobody is going to be able to change/update/add/delete any listing information from July 25th to the 27th.  Freezing the database allows flexmls® Web to convert the last of the data from Tempo to their system.  Staples and OfficeMax have stocked up on notepads expecting a heavy run from real estate agents needing to write down listing edits so they don’t forget.  

On Monday the 28th, if all goes as planned, you will begin changing/updating/adding/deleting listing information in the new flexmls system.  As you may know, Tempo will never thaw out.  It will remain frozen and will no longer have updated listing information.  You will be able to access Tempo for about a month to give you a chance to get all your saved searches transferred over. 

We know you won’t panic on July 25th, but we’re worried about the thousands of ARMLS members that don’t read our blog.  They might be surprised to find their MLS shutting off this vital feature.  So help us spread the word and encourage others to sign-up for a flexmls class.

12th Annual REALTOR® Expo

Friday July 18th 
9:00-12:30  
JW Marriot Desert Ridge Resort

The Scottsdale Area Association of REALTORS® (SAAR) is putting on the 12th Annual REALTOR® Expo this Friday.  With over 140 exhibitors and special keynote speaker David Fitzsimmons from The Arizona Daily Star it’s sure to be a well attended event.  Pre-register to save $10 off your entry fee.

ARMLS Tech Fair

August 21st and 22nd
9:00-5:00
Monterra at Westworld

The ARMLS approved vendors are going to be under one roof at the same time showing off their cool products available to local real estate agents.  Plan on attending if you are in the market for a website for your real estate business.  More details to come as we get closer to the event.

Improving indeed.  RL Brown said it back in January, the PMI reports confirmed it last week, and here we’ll show you some ARMLS figures that support it as well.

The quote we’ve repeated a number of times from RL Brown is that here in Phoenix we’ve already drank our tomato juice and popped our aspirin.  Of course he is referring to getting rid of the hang over from the real estate party of 2005.  His report showed that 70% of the new home prices had remained the same or went UP over the 4 months prior to his report.  He also discussed the stability of new home permits over the 6 months prior. 

Jay Thompson wrote a nice summary of the latest PMI report that indicates even though our numbers aren’t anything to write home about, they are among the few in the country that are moving in the right direction.  85% of the areas studied got lower scores compared to the last time the report was done - Q4 2007.  Phoenix was among the 15% that have improved.

ARMLS has reported sales volume increases every month since the beginning of the year.  The news got even better last month when June ‘08 outperformed June ’07.  It was the first time we have had a year over year sales volume increase in nearly three years. 

When we split the ARMLS numbers into 2 groups - above and below $350,000 - we have found that there is a normal market for the lesser priced bracket.  In fact, there were more than 4,700 sales last month under $350,000.  Compare that to the 35,000 active listings in the same bracket and that’s a 7 month supply.  Something tells us the FHA loan limit has A LOT to do with this.

So between RL saying the new home market has recovered, more than half of the market that ARMLS serves getting back to a normal inventory level, and our PMI risk factor going down, we’re starting to look much better my friend.

Bob Bemis, CEO for ARMLS had the pleasure of speaking with Channel 12 news this morning at 5:40 and 6:40. They stopped by to ask how the Phoenix housing market is doing. Bemis commented on the declining prices, high pending sales, and shrinking inventory. He also talked about the highest priced listing in ARMLS - any guesses of the price?

Here’s the video.

After playing with flexmls for about a week, we need to re-emphasize the importance of signing up for some flexmls training sessions. Being that this is a new system with many more bells and whistles than Marketlinx, our fear is that you may get frustrated attempting to do some basic functions. That’s why it is our recommendation to attend training classes as soon as possible. Your login is suppose to go live next week, and so is the training done by LandAmerica.

After speaking with Cynthia Lujan, we learned that LandAmerica is teaching a 100-minute beginners class (similar to ARMLS) repeatedly all around the valley starting on June 30th. Not only will they have access to the same handouts ARMLS has, they have made some of their own. For example, here is their Saved Search Worksheet. Each of their trainers will also be providing support for the new system starting June 30th. ARMLS support will begin July 15th.

Follow the links for the schedules and online sign-up forms.

Flexmls training in Chandler

Flexmls training in Glendale

Flexmls training in Mesa

Flexmls training in Scottsdale

Flexmls training in Surprise

Flexmls training in West Phoenix

Cynthia and her training partner Kathie have set up a blog dedicated to answering questions that come up in the class. Check it out - Flexin’ with LandAmerica.

It’s an ongoing joke between Jim and I, “Did you see the paper?” he’ll ask, knowing quite well I’m not a newspaper kind of guy.  I’m an internet reader - that has recently added watching the morning news to my routine.  So I usually respond with something like, “I’m not old enough to read the paper” or “not lately”.  Then he continues with extremely important news that I probably should have read about, but that’s what I rely on him for, like he relies on me to bring him technology news. 

However, this weekend I was looking for the paper, because the Arizona Republic regularly gives Jim the opportunity to write an article for their Broker’s Corner spot of the real estate section.  Sure enough, in Saturdays’ northeast valley run there was Jim’s smiling picture (no it wasn’t his high school photo!) next to the informational article on auctions here in Phoenix.

The Republic doesn’t publish the Broker’s Corner article on the internet, so for all you out there that missed it, or aren’t newspaper kind of people either, here you go.

Read the rest of this entry »

Have you signed up for the flexmls training yet?  It’s filling up!  At yesterday’s train-the-trainers meeting, Barbara Hoffman with ARMLS said they have 6,000 agents signed-up and 18 sessions are already full!

Register now for a session!  You don’t want to be caught off guard when the new system goes live on July 28th!

I was excited to receive in today’s mail Issue #2 of the “periodic” bulletin from ADRE, and since I have been asked to blog with you, what a good topic… So I went to ADRE’s website to provide you the link here and lo and behold there is even a more recent bulletin, Issue #3, posted on their site. Remember it is your responsibility as a licensee to go online and read their periodic updates.

It is also essential that you log on to ADRE and notify them whenever you move or need to change other personal information. If you haven’t already logged on to view your license information, take a moment to do so. Provide your email address to ADRE and you will be notified just prior to your license expiring. You can also sign up for email updates that are very informative.

Remember the bulletin is not only where disciplinary actions are published but lots of other good educationary materials as well.

Diane Scherer, CEO
Phoenix Association of REALTORS®