News Kids on EveryBlock

They’re going to be big stars. Girls will scream their name. Boys will publicly question their value while secretly crawling their website each night. Awards will be handed out to them. Crowds will flock.

They are not the latest boy band. They’re the latest great web 2.0/real estate/relevant news site…EveryBlock.

As a real estate agent, I crave relevant local content. I want to learn everything I can about my area. What building permits were issued? Who took local pictures and posted them to Flickr? How bad were the reviews of the new restaurant? I just can’t find enough hours in the day to satisfy my cravings. Enter the fabulous solution: EveryBlock. From their blog:

“What’s happening in my neighborhood?”

For a long time, that’s been a tough question to answer. In dense, bustling cities like Chicago, New York and San Francisco, the number of daily media reports, government proceedings and local Internet conversations is staggering. Every day, a wealth of local information is created — officials inspect restaurants, journalists cover fires and Web users post photographs — but who has time to sort through all of that?

Our mission at EveryBlock is to solve that problem. We aim to collect all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and make it simple for you to keep track of news in particular areas. We’re a geographic filter — a “news feed” for your neighborhood, or, yes, even your block.

Now, if they will start covering Woodstock GA.

Here are some other reviews of the EveryBlock service. Poynter & Venture Beat.

Georgia’s Statewide Water Plan

Senator Chip Rogers recently sent out an e-newsletter updating me on the current happenings at the state level.  One item jumped out at me, the creation of a Statewide Water Plan for Georgia.  I am encouraged to see our state government be pro-active in working to resolve the problems that were exposed by the recent drought.  Personally, I have never felt any long-term fear or concerns about water for Atlanta’s growing population.  I mean isn’t 90% of the Earth made of water?  Don’t we have smart people who can figure out how to make all that water usable?  Our friends and allies, Israel, seem to have figured it out by creating the world’s largest and most cost-effective desalination plant that is projected to provide 20% of Israel’s drinking water by 2010.  I also think more resorvoirs are no-brainer…they create water reserves, provide sceninc beauty, and the public loves lake recreation.  Here are Chip Rogers’ words from his newsletter:

“In order to help Georgia cope with the historic drought, the General Assembly has passed the state’s first- ever statewide water plan. The resolution passed overwhelmingly Friday in both the House and Senate.  This plan will create a joint state-wide water planning committee for the next three years in order to determine how much water is in the state’s lakes, streams, and rivers. In addition, it will create 11 water planning districts to allow water to be fairly distributed to businesses, farms, and households.”

Read the Senate Resolution for Georgia’s Statewide Water Plan.

“A RESOLUTION
To ratify a certain comprehensive state-wide water management plan; to provide for force and effect; to provide for construction; to provide an effective date; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.”

Georgia’s Newest Lake: Hickory Log Creek Dam in Canton

Construction on the dam to build Hickory Log Creek Resorvoir, in Canton, GA finished up last week.  The reservoir will cover 370 acres when full, and offer 15 miles of shoreline.  Compared to Lake Lanier’s 38,000 acres of water, and 692 miles of shoreline at normal level and Lake Allatoona’s 12,010 acres.  Now if we could just get some rain to slow the drought, the resorvoir could begin to fill.  It is projected to take 2 years to fill the lake.  The AJC has good coverage of the process and added this about the drought and resorvioir:  “The ongoing drought — the harshest on record — has reduced Hickory Log Creek to a trickle. Last week, the flow of the Etowah River tributary was about 2 cubic feet, about 15 gallons, a second. Normal flow is 10 cubic feet a second.  That’s one reason it will take as long to fill the reservoir as it did to build the 180-foot high dam.”

You can view a photo slideshow with informational comments at ajc.com.

Visit the official Hickory Log Creek Dam website and gain useful info at Hickory Log Creek Wikipedia.

Here is a cool ‘bird’s eye view’ of a conceptual model of what the lake might look like.

Real Estate Search Engine Comparison on a Local Level

This test was conducted Friday, Jan 18^th for zip code 30107.Kris Berg in San Diego recently wrote an article comparing and contrasting the different real estate search engines.  Please read her article, as I don’t want to rehash her excellent points.  My goal is to apply her analysis method to our local market here in Cherokee County and then interpret these results for our local audience.

To echo Kris’ point, your local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is the most comprehensive resource for accessing available homes on the market.  In our case, the local MLS is First Multiple Listing Service (FMLS) with some overlap from GA MLS.

In order to get a sample size that is easy to handle and within most search engine results limits, I chose Ball Ground, GA as my test market.  Specifically, I searched zip code 30107 and found these results:

These results raise many questions…

What is the real number of Active Listings in 30107? 
233, FMLS is the industry standard in this area and they have the most accurate listings.

Why does Metro Atlanta have two MLS systems?  Why don’t their results match?
Historically, GA MLS was used on the south side of Atlanta and FMLS was used on the northside.  They have both grown to cover the majority of Metro Atlanta and overlap in almost every single county.  As for why the results don’t match…FMLS is used by more brokers in Atlanta and especially so by those brokers on the north side of the city.

Why do Realtor.com and Zillow.com show more results than actual listings? 
They must pull their results from FMLS & GAMLS and combine the two, instead of parse them.

Why is there deviation by one or two listings among the closest results to FMLS?
FMLS is constantly updated throughout the day and most of the search engine sites only download the data at night.  Thereby creating some slight variation depending on time of day viewed. (*Buyer tip – search first thing in the morning to get apples to apples or subscribe to daily email updates of new listings.)

What are REW, dsSearch, and Listingware? 
These are third party IDX providers that local agents and brokers hire to aggregate data from the local MLS.  Instead of referencing local agent’s websites themselves, I just listed the commonly used IDX providers who generate the agents’ search results.  Maxsell.net uses iHomeFinder for it’s third party IDX service.

I hope this comparison clarifies the difference of real estate listing search engines results.  I think it further confirms that real estate is local and working directly with a local Realtor is the best source for accurate listings and data.  However, it is imperative that the local Realtor understands these differences.  If you are a Seller, your broker better be submitting your listing to all of these services in addition to the oodles, vast, hotpads, and other similar services as referenced by Kris in her article.

In my goal to clarify things, I am certain I have created more questions than I have given answers for.  I encourage you to comment below with any questions you would like for me to answer.