I met up with Realtor Steve Ostrom the other day while at Real Estate Bar Camp Sacramento (a great event). Steve interviewed me and we talked about home owners getting an appraisal before listing a home, finding comps and other issues. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Catch up with Steve and his wife Heather at www.rosevilleandrocklin.com or on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much Steve & Heather.

If you have any real estate appraisal, consulting, or property tax appeal needs in the Greater Sacramento Region, contact me at 916.595.3735, by email, on our appraiser website or via Facebook. 

I went to the NorCal Real Estate Expo yesterday. It was a fantastic event attended by well over 700 local real estate professionals (mostly Realtors). Here are ten highlights from my day at the Expo: 

1.  The best part of the NorCal Expo was running into so many familiar faces. It was great to mingle with Realtors, loan officers and title reps I know. I probably had 100 little conversations and 20 or more in-depth connections.

2.  It was so nice to meet others in person like Meghan Wood & Jennifer Klein, who I had only previously connected with on both Facebook and Twitter.

3.  Jim Pelley gave an outstanding talk. He really connected well with the audience and catered his stories to the real estate world. I wish he would have spoken twice actually.  

4.  I met Frank & Brian from Think Big Work Small and sat in on their talk. I honestly thought they would discuss video marketing, which I was excited about, but their presentation was still very good as they shared about B2B marketing. I also met Mike Mueller who taught a great class on advanced blogging (though 45 minutes is really short to cover a good amount of material).

5.  I received two appraisal orders during the day.

6.  I had an investor in the Bay Area give me a call while at the Expo after he found me online. He wanted to discuss duplexes in the local market, zip codes to avoid, rent, etc… After talking for 10 minutes or so, I was able to refer him to a trustworthy broker to help him find the right property. Hopefully this will turn into business for both parties.

7.  Alyssa Lozano did a wonderful job with the fashion show. I am by no means an authority on fashion by any mild stretch of the imagination, but it was so fun to see Realtors Heather Pearce and Chris Little among others strut their stuff on the runway. Rob McQuade did a fantastic job as the emcee too. Alyssa and her real estate models worked very hard on this production.

8.  The Twitter hashtag for the conference was #norcalexpo. Following conversations on Twitter during a convention is a really great techie way to connect with others. I found some new people to follow, gained new followers and had fun and helpful interactions too. If you go to a conference, find out what the hashtag is so you can be a part of the conversation. Have you done this before?

9.  I saw two other appraisers at the Expo, which was really great. It’s surprising though to not see many appraisers take advantage of networking with hundreds upon hundreds of local real estate agents.

10.  On a superficial note, I brought home some girly pens from vendor booths for my wife (an author). She always likes when I do things like that when I go to conferences. It’s the small things, right?

If you were at the Expo, I’d love to hear about what you thought of the day.

If you have any real estate appraisal, consulting, or property tax appeal needs in the Greater Sacramento Region, contact me at 916.595.3735, by email, on our appraiser website or via Facebook.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned SacTube here since March, so I figured I’d give a little shoutout since I just posted video #202 yesterday. If you didn’t know, I launched a website eight months ago called Sacramento Real Estate Tube with the goal of creating a resourceful video real estate hub for locals and the general public.

It’s been neat to see the website improve over time and it’s been great to connect with local real estate professionals too. One of the byproducts for me hosting this site is that I’ve been able to connect with some solid real estate professionals like Chad Focht, Gena Riede, and The Ostroms, as well as learn a thing or two from their videos.

Sometimes agents ask me why I run ”The Tube”. Maybe it seems a little unexpected to see an appraiser spear-heading something like this. Basically the purpose of SacTube is threefold: 1) Be a non-spammy resource to the public by sharing good videos; 2) Help increase web exposure for local real estate professionals (free marketing never hurts, right?); and 3) Build strong business relationships. In all of this, I firmly believe in being authentic and genuinely resourceful and helpful. Did I mention too how relevant I think video is for conveying information too?

If you have any questions about the site or videos to share, let me know. There is zero cost to post videos. Thank you for listening to my great news.

I’m heading to an appraisal inspection shortly in Roseville and I wanted to share some preliminary research. I find it interesting to take a panoramic glimpse of citywide data like this. What do you see in these trend graphs below? What stands out to you? The graphs are based on all single family residential sales and listings in Roseville from Sacramento Metrolist. I’d love to hear your comments below.  

While on the subject of Roseville, I wanted to mention that one of my Twitter friends, Realtor Steve Ostrom of Coldwell Banker, posted an interesting video a couple of weeks ago about shadow inventory in Roseville and Rocklin. It’s interesting to look at what the numbers are saying. How many houses are in the process of foreclosure? How many loans have defaulted but not listed on the market yet? Statistics like this are very important to watch and they can be indicators of what is to come too. If you can’t see the video below, then click HERE.