A town like no other in the Greater Phoenix metropolitan area, Paradise Valley is sixteen square miles that is home to over twelve resorts, five golf courses, and three spas. These amenities make Paradise Valley a town whose income is very much focused on tourism and tourist revenue.
With gas prices and airline ticket prices on the rise, Paradise Valley is an area directly affected by tourist and consumer dollars. While many hotels and tourist related businesses are feeling the pinch of the economy, others say business is as good as ever.
Deborah Gallow of Pucci Salon and Day Spa states that she has noticed the economy affecting her business. “Yes, the economy has affected us just like the rest of the world,” said Gallow. “We have discounts of products, discounts of services… anything to get people in.”
When I had my first major redesign of one of my websites done, it was changed from .NET (Advanced Access) to a Drupal site. I wrote about that change in a post named Drupal For Real Estate within a month of making the new site live.
Well, it's happened again... only this time I moved a site from .NET (Point2Homes) to WordPress using PropertyTown (Greg Boser's newest project)! And, if I do say so myself, it is working out better than I could have ever expected! Sticking with tradition, I have waited just over a month to post about this move (mostly to make sure everything is working correctly before sharing the site here with everyone).
Now, you may be asking yourself how a blog can be a website... if so, I would read up here for those who are new to WordPress.
First off: I'd like to give a special thanks to Greg Boser (aka WebGuerrilla) for all of his help with this new project... I couldn't have done it without you!!! Thanks to the brilliant SEO work of Greg, Dax and Cesar this has been an easy move to make!
The site I moved this time is my Scottsdale real estate sales website. Below is a screenshot of how the new site looks...
Naturally, one of the coolest features about using WordPress for a real estate website is the fact that you have a blog already integrated into the site and design. For this application I chose to name the blog Scottsdale Community News, which makes the most sense to me since it is about nothing more or less than just that.
One of the other great features is being able to have my listings on their own city appropriate pages. On this site I offer homes for sale in Rio Verde, Pinnacle Peak, Fountain Hills and of course, Scottsdale.
Speaking of features, some of you may have noticed the similarities between my old Phoenix site and my new Scottsdale site... that's because my Director Of Marketing, Max Chirkov, took our old CSS and applied it to a standard WordPress Theme. But, you don't have to be a CSS pro in order to have a WordPress site. Take a minute to look at all the WordPress Themes available for free online. Amazing heh?
Any-who, back to the new site... I have taken an extensive amount of time traveling, shooting photos and lining up details and facts about each of the communities my team serves with this site. The communities are as follows: North Scottsdale, South Scottsdale, Pinnacle Peak, Rio Verde Foothills and Fountain Hills. Note that not only do I have extensive information about each area that we serve, I now also have an extensive photo album for each community so as I blog about each, I can add photos to the blog posts and refer to the info on each individual community page as needed.
Any questions, comments or other website stories to share? Then leave a comment, I check them all the time!
First off, what a ride! 2004 and 2005 were unlike any years I've ever seen before in the Phoenix Metro real estate market. Thank goodness it has slowed... but wait, before you get too upset with me - hear me out.
Fountain Hills Arizona Real Estate Boom While the boom was great, it had a lot of down sides like the "Growing Pains" that not a lot of people saw while it was happening. I for one quickly realized that my team would not possibly be able to handle each and every person that came to us. Well, at least not with the same care and diligence that we've always used. So, we had to make the choice to cut down big time on our new client load. It may sound crazy to you now since the market in most places has slowed dramatically. But, it was the only way to maintain our integrity at the Phoenix Homes Team and make sure each of our clients got 100% of our attention when we were with them.
Additionally, the run up in home prices across the nation meant that many would not be able to afford a home soon if it were to keep going the way it was.
Let me tell you, I do not miss those days...
Pinnacle Peak, Arizona Real Estate Fog Now it seems, many consumers and agents alike are in a sort of real estate fog. Simply waiting on the side lines for "the fog to clear". Consumer confidence drives our economy folks... nothing is going to happen until we do something ourselves. Waiting for the local news stations and news papers to write some positive news about the real estate market just isn't a viable plan.
We as agents need to take the time to educate the general public. Did you know that every source I've read says that 2007 will most likely go down in history in the top 5 best years of real estate sales?
We as consumers (yes I have bought, and do live, in a house) need to realize that real estate as a long term investment almost always does well. So why not buy now while some sellers are still in the "buyer's market" mode. Why wait for that to turn around, only to buy in a seller's market. Seems foolish when it is written, yet that is what many consumers are doing.
North Scottsdale, Arizona McDowell Mountain Ranch Real Estate Rainbows Luckily I live, work and play in the Greater Phoenix area and people move in more than they move out. That being said, I am very bullish on our market. It continues to amaze me how many people are actually moving here, and it's not just people but major employers too! With our outstanding weather, great lifestyle, good job market and affordable housing, I see Central Arizona growing for many years to come.
I don't want to hear anyone saying that they wished they would've bought back when it was a buyer's market (these things don't last forever). Because... I told you so.
I am proud to announce that www.PhoenixHomes.com is now a fully custom site using the Drupal platform.
A special thank you to my Director of Marketing, Max Chirkov, for helping to make all of this possible!
We went live with the new version back on 6/20/07. I was a bit nervous about the move and possible loss of leads (revenue) since the domain has been hosted with Advanced Access for a lot of years. But using 301 re-directs we were able to maintain our positioning in all the major search engines and even gain a few spots! So, our transition from Advanced Access to our own custom site went very well.
Here's a snapshot of how the site looked when it was with AA (keep in mind that this was also semi-custom):
Now, here's a snapshot of the current custom design on our own server:
Not only did we switch from left to right hand navigation, but now our IDX is fully integrated on a sub-domain http://Search.PhoenixHomes.com provided by Killer IDX. This enables our visitors to search the entire Arizona Multiple Listing Service without ever leaving our site, or giving up any personal information.
My favorite sections of the new site are our homes for sale and the Phoenix Monsoon. They are my favorites because of the images and the way they load. Go to one of the above links and navigate to the listing details if viewing our homes for sale and click on any picture, or click on any picture if viewing the Monsoon pictures. Well... what do you think? I think it is sweet how the image appears and you can move to the next one, or back, etc. yet you never lose the exact place you were at on the site. In fact you can still see the site under the transparent black background.
Address: 14219 E. Dove Valley Road Type: Residential Style: Single Story Bedrooms: 3 Bathrooms: 4 Suite: No Living Area: 4,039 square feet Year Built: 2007
Description
Pre-construction value priced! Ready to be built on contract, with loads of standard features you won`t find in the other homes around here.
2 lots from Tonto National Forest Preserve. Solid Notty Alder interior doors & custom cabinets, travertine floors, granite slab kit counters, stainless appliances & 1 custom ceiling treatment in room of your choice. Highest attention to detail during construction. On contract, I can walk you through the last finished home to show the quality of this builder! Permits ready, appx 7-8 months build time.
***Pictures are of same floorplan, but sold, this one is "to be built". Photos for illustration purposes only****
Take a $10,000 discount from List Price for using M&I Bank & Arizona Title, call me for details.
Rio Verde area appreciating rapidly!
More information on our homes for sale at PhoenixHomes.com
Brokered and Advertised by Realty Executives LID 989541
Information is deemed to be correct but not guaranteed.
Address: 15236 N. 19th Place Type: Residential Style: Single Story Bedrooms: 4 Bathrooms: 3 Suite: Yes Living Area: 2,607 square feet Year Built: 2007 More Details
Description
Number of bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage all based on including guest house and age is based on the renovation (orig built in 1979).
Charming hillside retreat in a quiet, established neighborhood w/great views! Diving pool and spa set in a large cul-de-sac lot which was a $24,000 premium in 1979. Gourmet kitchen all GE Monogram stainless steel appliances w/double convection ovens - 4' X 7' built in fridge - dual blower hood and more, maple, granite, travertine, solid core doors, dual pane windows, complete new ducts and A/C systems now on ground, new tile roof. Offering a $7000 allowance to enhance the lighting, shower doors and landscaping.
Call today for more information or to set up a private showing of this beautiful home. (Owner/Agent) More Description
Brokered and Advertised by Realty Executives LID 993919
Information is deemed to be correct but not guaranteed.
So, I come to ActiveRain today and notice that the home page is much wider than usual, in fact, my scroll bar is showing on the bottom of the page. I think, "hummmmm, that's strange".
I proceed to log in anyways, thinking nothing of it.
Once logged in though I begin to notice other issues. For one, the section I have named as "Friends Of Ours" has been completely re-ordered. It used to be in the order that they signed on as an associate of mine. Wonder what happened there...
Next, I click on the link next to "Friends Of Ours" which usually takes me to all of their blog posts so I can read what's new in my friend's lives. That takes me to a page with over 10,000 blog posts (well, page one of a lot of pages with a total blog count of over 10,000). So, I guess I can't read my friend's blogs today either.
Please don't tell me this site is starting to tank the way my Advanced Access site, www.PhoenixHomes.com, did for over two weeks.
Anyone else having issues with the Rain today? On the public side or private side?
Did anyone notice that there is a PR (PageRank) update going on today? Of course, we all know it's simply a "FoolBar" (Google ToolBar) update. The actual PageRank didn't change today, just the public tool for veiwing it did.
Note that the ActiveRain.com home page went from a PR 2/10 to a 5/10. Congratulations everyone!
My main website PhoenixHomes.com went from a PR 6/10 to a PR 5/10 though, boo FoolBar. LOL It really makes no matter though. It's our position in the SERP's that really counts because that's what drives the search engine traffic to our sites and we all know that traffic equals leads which equals more opportunities to meet new potential clients.
Normally, Google implements an update and then everyone is talking about it.
This time it's different.
Google plans to make Google Base an integral part of their search algorithm this fall. This is huge folks!
Surprised? I'm not. Google has a long history of implementing major changes before "the holidays". Many think it is planned this way to increase their revenue via PPC. You see, they make algo changes, your site's position slips in the SERP's (search engine results pages) right before the holidays, you can not afford to have this dramatic decrease in traffic to your website right before the holidays (which is the busiest time of the year for both online and offline retailers), so you Pay Per Click (PPC) to guarantee your traffic numbers. Ahhh, but this is mere conspiracy theory and could turn into a book.
Mostly, I am writing this today to inform you of the planned changes and to open up a healthy discussion about Google Base and how you think it will impact the real estate industry (if you don't already know, Google Base incorporates homes for sale much like a Craig's List into their search results above all naturally occurring results, YUCK!).
Okay, okay... some of you are already saying Google Base isn't news. It's been in the search results for months now. To that I say - yes, but they haven't given it a push yet and now they are going for a full shove. Pushing it into our lives right before our eyes.
So, what are your thoughts, concerns or questions about this bold move?
Was bored today so I decided to see how many times the words Active Rain were mentioned on the web, according to Google. Actually, now that I've typed it, I can not believe that it is not Google's own catch phrase by now, "The Web According to Google". LOL
Here is what I found...
When searching to the words: "Active Rain"Results 1 - 10 of about 26,300 for "active rain"
"ActiveRain"Results 1 - 10 of about 111,000 for "activerain"
For fun, I also looked up "Google" WOW! Results 1 - 10 of about 1,630,000,000 for "google"
Can you believe how many references there are on the web in such a short amount of time? Congrats to the founding fathers on this brainSTORM (excuse my pun) of an idea called the ActiveRain Network!
On a side note, did you notice that there are nearly 2 Billion references to Google on the web! Yikes!
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
While the boom was great, it had a lot of down sides like the "
Now it seems, many consumers and agents alike are in a sort of real estate fog. Simply waiting on the side lines for "the fog to clear". Consumer confidence drives our economy folks... nothing is going to happen until we do something ourselves. Waiting for the local news stations and news papers to write some positive news about the real estate market just isn't a viable plan.
Luckily I live, work and play in the Greater Phoenix area and people move in more than they move out. That being said, I am very bullish on our market. It continues to amaze me how many people are actually moving here, and it's not just people but major employers too! With our outstanding weather, great lifestyle, good job market and affordable housing, I see Central Arizona growing for many years to come.
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