Carpenter Real Estate News - Home

Enhancing value for Indianapolis home buyers and sellers, and our agents

2012-05-10T15:07:58Z

The sun is shining. The air is fresh. Seems as good a time as any to give a shout out to, and credit to our new buddies at VisualTour.

Earlier this year, we put together a very unique deal with VisualTour, the nation's leading virtual tour provider. Our plan was dual-focused: create more value for Carpenter Realtors® within our agent community, and present a more complete, robust and comprehensive online presentation of our company's listings.

Turns out it was a one-step process with two very positive aspects.

First, we purchased VisualTour licenses for each one of our nearly 600 associates. Keywords: purchased and for. They get all the bells and whistles of a complete VisualTour virtual tour production package.

Access to VisualTour's software that enables them to produce custom virtual tours of their listings ... or anything they want ... as a virtual tour. That includes all the syndication options available through VisualTour to better expose their listings to potential buyers.

Next, we encouraged (OK, we prodded. OK, we insisted that) VisualTour automatically create a virtual tour for every Carpenter listing as well as a YouTube video for every listing. Automatically, within 48 hours of a listing being active, a new tour and video are created. Then they're both loaded to callcarpenter.com, to trulia.com, to homefinder.com and many other sites VisualTour has an agreement with. The video also goes to Carpenter's YouTube channel.

The value here is all over the place. Each of our agents is saving hundreds of dollars a year by not paying VisualTour or another company for a personal license. $0 for the same product. Plus they can even create custom self-promotional, neighborhood or event tours. What about our sellers? They get a more complete package of their home for sale. A package they can share with their friends and neighbors, creating more value in their home. For buyers - the information junkies - they get more ways to find and view all the Carpenter homes for sale. That more complete experience with Carpenter listings is a bonus for everyone: agents, sellers and buyers.

To date, we've gotten huge response from our sellers, a big bump on our web traffic and a nice increase in incoming leads for our agents.

Call me a whiner, but it's tough being the company with the most complete, extensive and aggressive home marketing programs, what with the other guys stealing your best programs. It's tough, but it's what we do. Go ahead followers - keep on being the second to create programs and the second-best at executing them. Be almost as good as Carpenter, with our innovative home marketing that gives buyers and sellers both, what they want when they want it. We've got more coming.

Posted by: Jim Newell

An Indianapolis Housing Market in Transition

2012-04-30T12:02:54Z

As we publish the newest edition of Carpenter Reports, a quarterly review of local market activity, we see that the local real estate market is in transition in the first quarter of 2012. We continue to see very positive signs in the data, as year-over-year listing inventory continues to decline at double digit rates, pending sales have increased in the double-digits, and the average sale price increased slightly.

For listing inventory, every County and every Township within Marion County showed a year-over-year decline. This is needed in order for the market to get back into balance...to get healthy again. Johnson County leads the market for the second straight quarter with a decline of 18.4%, followed by Putnam County with a decline of 18.2%. Marion County, as the largest county for inventory, saw a nearly 18% decline in inventory.

The national and local economy continues to slowly make improvements. That continued improvement reflects on the housing market. The trending numbers during the first quarter of 2012 are positive and showing some momentum.

For example, pending sales during the first quarter were up over 13% year-over-year with Putnam, Montgomery and Madison Counties leading the way with over 30% improvement. Marion County experienced a solid 15.1% growth of pending sales.

The average residential sales price for closed sales in central Indiana showed slight improvement with a 1.2% increase year-over-year. Shelby County lead the recovery with a 13.9% increase. This is a strong turn-around as they experienced a 14.7% decline last quarter. Marion County, the largest of the reporting units experienced a healthy 2.2% increase.

The increases in average sales price for closed units is a strong indicator the market is transitioning from a depressed buyers market to a more healthy and balanced market. We continue to believe we will see a firming of prices and growth in the averages as the year progresses.

Consumer confidence continues to be one of the two critical elements in driving home sales; mortgage interest rates being the other. Mortgage rates continue at a near record low level; currently hovering at 4%. Consumer confidence, as measured by the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), has continued to inch up over the past three months and has reached levels not seen since the spring of 2008. As consumer confidence continues to grow, the demand for housing will grow and average sales prices will move up with that increasing demand.

At Carpenter, our belief is we will see continued improvement in the local economy, in consumer confidence, and in housing going forward. In an election year, we do anticipate a few bumps in the road. The negative nature of the political discourse will undoubtably have a drag on the recovery. Time will tell how much it will impact home-buyers.

Posted by: David Caveness

19th Annual GFC / Carpenter Golf Classic

2012-04-17T12:05:28Z

It’s hard to believe summer is right around the corner…and with summer comes our annual charity golf event. Held at the 36-hole Pebblebrook Golf Club in Noblesville, IN, the GFC Carpenter Classic will be Friday, June 15th and is our primary fundraiser for the Gennesaret Free Clinic. GFC provides medical, dental, and vision care for the most vulnerable Hoosiers – our homeless and working poor. Throughout the years, Carpenter REALTORS® with the help of its management team, its agents, and its service partners has raised over $900,000 for this very worthy cause. Please join us this year for a day of fun, food, golf, and prizes as we work toward the $1,000,000 mark!

The day starts with lunch at the course and a shotgun start at Noon. There are always plenty of snacks and refreshments out on the course, and the day concludes with dinner and awards. Sponsorship opportunities start as low as $250 and foursomes for as little as $500. Contact Ellen DeTroy at 317-573-5464 x 203 or for more information.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

First Time Home Seller? We’re here to help!

2012-04-09T12:12:03Z

Here’s a great article from Fox Business News that talks about tips and things to consider when selling a home for the first time. A fun fact, an agent quoted in the article is with our Leading Real Estate Companies of the World partner, Long and Foster. Just another example of how, as a member of LeadingRE, we have access to the best brokers and agents across the globe.

Many of these tips are well aligned with how Carpenter agents do business and are covered on our website. The real estate market is complex, but it is a great time to sell a home with price improving and lower inventory on the market. You can also learn more about our exclusive Home Market System or we would be happy to have one of our local agents walk you through the process.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

HGTV's Househunters visits Indianapolis via Carpenter Realtors

2012-03-29T12:50:16Z

Who hasn't seen House Hunters or House Hunters International on HGTV? I'm not a regular but if I'm surfing and come across one, I'm stuck for the rest of the episode. After all, what kind of an Indiana guy like me can't learn a few things from a family buying a second home in Tahiti or a couple fretting over three million-dollar Central Park condos?

Occasionally House Hunters comes down to Earth. This Tuesday they're doing just that - coming to Indianapolis to help a relocating couple. That's interesting on its own, but when two Carpenter agents are involved, we get excited.

In this case, a couple (Carmen and Erik) have moved to Indianapolis from San Francisco. Don't laugh - it happens a lot. Why Indianapolis? They simply took a liking to us during a Summer visit, specifically noting our warm, inviting neighborhoods. The couple selected Alice Steppe from our Pike office to be their "guide" in selecting their new home. So - welcome to “House Hunters” Indianapolis!

For two weeks in November and December, Alice, Carmen and Erik looked at available homes for sale on the north side. Not just the three you'll see in the show, but nearly 60 homes ... narrowed to their top three choices. The L.A. production company followed them through those top homes and the process Carmen and Erik went through to select a home. Imagine the L.A. and San Francisco people when they saw the home values in Indianapolis!

But wait, that's not all! Coincidentally, one of the final three homes that appears on this show is listed by another agent in our Pike Office - Steven Kass! That's right - based on this scientific study - we have the buyers and we have the listings those buyers prefer.

Check your calendar or set your DVRs The episode airs this Tuesday, April 3 at 10:00 p.m. on HGTV and repeats again at 1:00 a.m.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Relocation Director Appointed to U.S. Advisory Council

2012-03-22T11:21:25Z

We are pleased to announce that Ryan Carrell, CRP, our Director of Relocation and Client Services, has been appointed to a 1 year term as a member of the U.S. Advisory Council for the Worldwide Employee Relocation Council (WERC). The U.S. Advisory Council is made of representatives from all facets of domestic corporate relocation including real estate, moving and storage, relocation management companies, human resources, and corporate mobility specialists. This year’s chairman of the committee is Michael Washburn, SCRP, SGMS of Pfizer, Inc.

We are humbled to have a voice on this national committee and know that Ryan will represent Carpenter well in this capacity. Ryan is also the immediate past chairman of the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World Advisory Committee and a recent recipient of their President’s Service Award. You can reach him at , follow him on Twitter @rcarrell, connect on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/ryancarrell, or Facebook at www.facebook.com/ryanwcarrell.

Posted by: David Caveness

Using online enhancements to market a home for sale ... it works

2012-03-21T20:05:04Z

As with any real estate firm, we’re always looking for ways to increase the number of incoming leads we see. After all, marketing a home for sale is about generating buyer interest, ain't it?

Obviously, our web site is a primary place to generate leads and it does a great job of it. But no one can be so naïve as to think their website is the only place buyers will look for a home for sale. It’s tough enough that people still don’t realize they can find all the area homes for sale at callcarpenter.com. It’s just silly to imagine that we don’t want our listings to appear in every possible place a buyer may look. How do you sell a buyer on that concept?

That’s why I was so happy to have “sold” Carpenter on a new online enhancement to our Home Marketing System for 2012. We’ve been in talks with all the national sites for years – determining the value of having Carpenter listings be prominently featured on those sites. One group that stood out was trulia. For some three years, trulia has been a consistently decent producer of quality leads for Carpenter. Over that time I’ve been watching their growth and it finally really caught our attention. In the past year, they’ve more than doubled their visitor counts. And that’s not from a small number. By my count, they’re #2 nationally in traffic and I expect them to be #1 in the near future.

So what? Our existing homefinder.com enhancement program typically generates 15,000-20,000 online showings a month. And homefinder is a tenth the size of trulia.

In 2012 we’re enhancing every Carpenter listing on trulia.com. 20 million homebuyers a month exposed to our listings. More than realtor.com can give us at a fraction of the cost.

The great thing is that the exposure we’re getting on trulia, including our online showings, has quadrupled. The number of leads generated by trulia has more than tripled since we started. And we’ve always found that trulia leads are decent, serious buyers.

Agents are thrilled. Sellers are thrilled to have this kind of exposure for their home and the online showings they’re getting. I’m thrilled because everyone likes me right now.

Posted by: Jim Newell

The First LOCAL Mobile App, because Real Estate is Local

2012-03-09T17:03:34Z

So, who's up on the latest technology?

Oops! Too late. It's already moved on! Just like that 4G commercial, technology is often moving faster than we can keep up with it. I'm sometimes tempted not to try, then I see something newer and cooler and I jump on board. As a company, we used to be that way ... holding off to see if something really sticks, then slowly adopt. I think we finally agreed to get fax machines in 1999 and that cell phones were here to stay back in 2002.

No more. We're now on the cutting edge of the best, most useful tech. Today, it's the first local Indiana mobile app. Launched a few weeks ago, it's already been downloaded several hundred times, creating a big leap in callcarpenter.com's mobile traffic.

Got a smartphone, you can get the app. By smartphone I mean Droid or iPhone OS. Grandpa, that flip phone you're using is so first grade. Blackberrys ... fifth grade, maybe middle school. We're talking grad school here.

So what? Who cares? If you're like me, aren't you reaching for your phone before you walk to the computer? So for a buyer, the callcarpenter.com app offers one-touch access to every home for sale in Indiana and around the world. It has our GPS HomeSearch, the first local GPS search, with details on the home in front of the user or any nearby. It offers complete neighborhood statistics and instant access to any Carpenter agent. For a seller, it's another way to reach your home's potential buyer faster, when they're in the mood for information It's the whole shebang, the whole kit & kaboodle. It's the complete package, the cat's meow. It's hip, daddy-o, its a happening thing, it's groovy, man.

Droid users, visit the Android Market (transitioning over to Google Play Store) and search Carpenter Realtors. iPhone and iPad? They're a little pickier on the app, so you just need to click here or snap the QR code. Open it in Safari and save it to your home screen.

Posted by: Jim Newell

The spring market has sprung!

2012-03-09T16:53:32Z

Back in November, I wrote a post about central Indiana potentially becoming a seller’s market. More than three months later it appears we may be even closer to that reality. There are a couple of items that point to this – The KCM Blog recently published this map showing shadow inventory by state. Shadow inventory is term that describes the amount of inventory that is not on the market but could be coming. This would include potential foreclosures and bank owned properties not listed.

Though Indiana is on the low end of the spectrum, there is clearly more inventory waiting to come on the market…but it is not on the market currently. My second indication that we are closer to a seller’s market was the conversation I had yesterday with a Human Resources contact in charge of relocation for one of our major corporations. One of the biggest challenges he is currently facing – finding a quality selection of acceptable properties for long term lease or purchase for his incoming transfers.

The take away: If you are sitting on the sidelines and have been thinking about selling your home, NOW is the time. Not sure where to begin, contact your local Carpenter office or call our Client Service Center at 800-630-1727 and we can help.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Annual Sales Rally Motivates and Predicts a Real Estate Recovery

2012-02-20T16:49:35Z

Recently, Carpenter Realtors® held our annual Sales Rally, a great expo of real estate vendors and motivational speakers as well as a kickoff for 2012 and a thank you to our best producers of 2011.

This year's guests were Dr. David Mashburn and Darryl Davis.

Dr. Mashburn, Director of Research and Development for Tidemark Inc, shared his talk "The Elephant, the Rider and the Path." Darryl Davis, for many years one of the highest-rated speakers at the NAR® Convention and the only real estate speaker who is a Best-Selling Author, as well as a successful stand-up comedian, explained how we can find opportunity in today’s market and dramatically increase our production with his top four tips that generate listing leads immediately.

Our theme this year was "In the Red Zone," a nice tie-in to Indy hosting the Super Bowl as well as the coming recovery in the real estate market. In doing so, we (marketing and IT departments) announced several exciting new programs for 2012 that will not only give Carpenter agents another advantage in successfully listing and selling homes, but has many ways to save our agents money(!), time and effort. Want a free virtual tour program from the nation's leader? How about listing enhancements on the nation's (soon-to-be) #1 real estate search site? What about unlimited email capabilities and document storage at no charge? Crazy - enhancements that cost less. Whodathunkit? More later.

We also had a chance to thank our top producers for 2011, including sales and listing leaders from all 30 offices as well as the most productive agents across the company.

Take a peek at the slideshow of photos from this year's rally. Then, take a gander at, and thank the industry-leading vendors who helped make this event the huge success it was!

Posted by: Jim Newell

Improvements in Indiana Real Estate are Evident

2012-02-13T17:03:02Z

The local real estate market is healing. We've just released the new edition of Carpenter Reports, and we see some very positive signs in the Indianapolis and central Indiana housing market. Listing Inventory continues to decline. This decline is needed for the market to get back into balance ... to get healthy again. Inventories of single family homes for sale are down in the fourth quarter by 29.9%. Johnson County leads the market with a decline of 36%, followed by Shelby County with a 33% decline. Marion County, as the largest county for inventory saw a nearly 30% decline.

The national and local economy continues to make improvements. That continued improvement reflects on the housing market. The trending numbers during the fourth quarter of 2011 are positive. Pending sales during the fourth quarter were up nearly 14% year-over-year with Shelby County leading the way with a 51% year-over-year improvement followed by Hancock County with a 28.3% improvement in the fourth quarter. Marion County experienced a solid 14.1 growth of pending sales.

The average residential sales price for closed sales in central Indiana remained relatively flat to down slightly. The average for the 11 county area was down by 3.6% from the same period last year. Again, Shelby County led the list with a 14.7% decline. Hamilton, Johnson and Madison Counties saw an increase in their sales prices year-over-year in the fourth quarter. We believe we will begin to see a firming of prices and growth in the averages as the year progresses.

As we have discussed before, consumer confidence is one of the two critical elements in driving home sales; mortgage interest rates being the other. Mortgage rates are now at a record low level; currently below 4%. Consumer confidence, as measured by the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), rose sharply in both November and December from historically low levels. The January index drifted down only slightly, but held the gains from the previous months. As consumer confidence grows, the demand for housing will grow with it.

At Carpenter, we continue to believe we will see gradual improvement in the local economy, in consumer confidence, and in housing going forward. Bumps in the road are to be expected, especially in an election year, but we believe the improvement will be relatively steady going forward.

Posted by: David Caveness

Make the move to Google+

2012-02-06T00:00:00Z

Google+ is Google’s refocused social networking application. It has some advantages over Facebook in that it is fully integrated with all your other Google applications. So if you have a Gmail account, Picasa photo albums, Youtube videos, Google Voice, etc., you probably have a Google+ account.

In addition to the advantage of being integrated into your existing Google world, the platform itself has some other unique features that make it a good choice for professionals as well as just the usual social networking. Google Hangouts lets you share your screen, work on documents together (a la Google Docs) and have a video discussion with up to nine others. And you can do this from your laptop, smartphone or tablet. They also have Circles which makes it much easier to categorize your “friends” and keep the information, photos, posts, etc. shared with the people you want it shared with. There are already 90 million Google+ users and all the buzz says it’s going to be a winner so it’s worth at least checking out.

When I looked at trying out Google+ my first thought was what a pain it would be to move all the photos I had previously uploaded to Facebook. Or so I thought. It’s actually not as hard as you might think. When I googled around I found that you can actually download the entire contents of your Facebook account, including all the photos which is half the battle. There are lots of steps but none of them are difficult. So, here’s how to do it:

1. From within Facebook, click on the down-arrow next to your name and Home. The top choice is Account settings. Click on it.

2. From the General Account Settings page you’ll see “Download a copy of your Facebook data” at the bottom of the list under Language. Click it.

3. On the next page you’ll see a big green button titled “Start my Archive.” Click it.

4. You’ll get a message telling you “it may take a while to gather all of your photos, etc” and you’ll need to click “Start my Archive” again and you’ll see a message telling you that you’ll be notified when your archive is ready.

5. When your Facebook data is ready to download you’ll receive an email notification with a link to the download. When you receive that email, click the link and download the file to your computer. You’ll get a single zip file containing all your Facebook data.

6. Right click on the zip file and click “Extract all...” and follow the prompts to extract the contents of the zip file. It could be a large file so it might take a few minutes for Windows to extract all the files.

7. Once extracted you’ll see a file with your facebook name on it. Double click it and you’ll see two files - one titled “html” and another titled “photos.” Inside the photos folder are all your Facebook photos. Take note of the folder location of those photos or simply copy and paste the photos folder to your “My Pictures” folder.

8. Now we need Google’s free photo management software, Picasa. Click here to download and install it. If you already have Picasa you should make sure it’s the newest version by clicking “Help - Check for Updates” from within Picasa.

9. Open Picasa, click File - Add Folder to Picasa and select the folder containing your Facebook photos.

10. In the upper right corner click on Sign in with Google Account. Sign in with your Google+ Google account here.

11. Along the left pane of Picasa you see all your folder names. Click on any one of them you want added to Google+. Once selected you turn Sync to Web to the On position and Picasa will upload your photos to your online Picasa album.

12. Once your photos have uploaded they are still private and viewable only by you. You must log into your Google+ account, select Photos from the choices across the top of the screen and then select Your albums from along the left and select which albums you want shared with which circles.

13. Click on any album you want shared with your circles and click Share Album.
Select which circles you want the album shared with and you’re done. Do this for any or all albums you want shared with your Google+ circles.

Like I said, there are a lot of steps but I don’t think any of them are overly complicated and this is much easier than manually re-uploading all your photos to Google+.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

Doreen Leads Naptown Knitters

2012-02-03T16:56:17Z

Doreen Tatnall, an agent in Carpenter Realtors’® Eastside Office should be an inspiration to everyone in Indianapolis. In October of 2010 she got an idea while attending a meeting of the Woodruff Place Civic League. There, the Superintendent of the Indiana Re-Entry Facility (IREF) of the Indiana Department of Corrections (Prisons) was pleading for volunteer help from the community. Her idea was to go into the IREF and teach the male prisoners how to knit. Her specific goal was to teach them how to knit scarves for the Super Bowl Scarf project. She went to work on her idea.

Since then, Doreen has met with the inmates twice a week, taught them to knit, personally provided the blue and white yarn and needles, and led the group to complete 20 scarves for the Super Bowl volunteers. Every time I see one of those scarves on television or spread across downtown this week, I wonder if that scarf is one from the Naptown Knitters and does that volunteer know where it can from. At almost 5’ 3”, she is an inspiration to me and to those men at IREF as they prepare to re-enter society by giving back to the community outside those walls.

P.S. Doreen and the Naptown Knitters are starting another knitting project...they are knitting stocking hats and scarves for breast cancer survivors and the Susan B. Komen Foundation. WOW! You can click here to reach Doreen about opportunities to help.

Posted by: David Caveness

The Sweet Spot

2012-02-01T11:52:42Z

Ben Hess, founding partner and managing Director of Tidemark, Inc., recently wrote an article that references a point made by Tom Prall, our President, at Carpenter’s January Managers’ Meeting - NOW is the time for managers to be focused on recruiting agents into the real estate business. You can read Ben’s entire post here.

Today, is the “tipping point” for people beginning (and sustaining) their career in real estate because there is a developing shift in the average number of transactions per agent from very few to significantly more as the market begins to emerge from the past recession. Simply put, the market is improving while the number of professionals to service those transactions continues to decline or at least lag the improvement. It won’t last forever, but the last time we witnessed this shift at the start of a recovery there were a number of bountiful years until the overall agent count caught up.

Increasing Sales + Less Agents = The Sweet Spot

If you want more information on this or would like to discuss how you can take advantage of this developing “sweet spot,” feel free to contact me or one of our managing brokers. A list of Carpenter locations and mangers can be found on our website.

Posted by: David Caveness

Carpenter Realtors moves to the Cloud with Google Apps for Business

2012-01-27T17:03:00Z

Carpenter Realtors held their annual Kickoff for 2012 yesterday. Amid the many exciting announcements and new programs, we unveiled Google Apps for Business to our sales team.

Google Apps for Business is a paradigm shift in communications, breaking away from the old way to do business – the tired approach of loading software onto one machine and either lugging that machine around or doing without all your documents. The USB sticks, the merging of multiple versions of documents, lost files, inaccessible files, etc. are a thing of the past.

The new paradigm is cloud computing. Everything is stored, processed and accessed on Google’s servers – the “cloud.” The device accessing the data is no longer anywhere near as important. If you’re about to give a presentation and your laptop dies, under the old paradigm you’re completely shut down. With Google Apps for Business you can log into your Google account from any computer, any tablet, any smart phone and access your documents, including that presentation and the show goes on. Google Apps for Business gives our agents 25GB of storage. Consider Dropbox starts at 2GB and our old email server provided 3GB of storage for comparison. Old sales files from years ago can now be kept for the day that buyer from years ago becomes a seller. The platform gives our users business Gmail, Google Docs, Google Video, Google Sites, Chat & Video Chat. And instead of buying one license from Microsoft that gave us one copy of Office to install on one computer (and one copy to upgrade, for a fee, down the road) we get with one license of Google Apps for Business access to all those features on a multitude of devices – as many as that user needs.

Consider an example – an agent creates a document on a walk up computer in one of our offices. They email that document and walk away. Two hours later while they’re on the other side of town they get a call and need that document again. Maybe they retrieve it from their sent items or they drive back to that office. Maybe someone deleted the document. Or someone is sitting on that computer. Or worse, they created the document in Word 2010 and the recipient has Office 2003. Or doesn’t have Office at all. Whatever, it’s less than ideal. So you track down the document, make the changes, email it back to them and later get to the closing table and they’re using the wrong version of the document you emailed. They’re on version six and version nine has all the corrections. Ugh.

Now with Google Apps for Business that same agent creates a document and shares it with someone – not emails it, shares it. The recipient gets access to the document in Google Docs. No software to install, no compatibilities to overcome. No file size limitations to worry about with email. The recipient says they need some changes made. Great; Use the Google Docs App on your smartphone or tablet. Or log in from any computer to your Google Apps account. Make the changes. You’re done. It’s already a shared document. You don’t have to email it again. Or worry about which version of the document they’re going to use. As Google says, there’s only one version of the “truth.” One document, one version that everyone has. Edit it umpteen times and there’s still just one copy of that document. You could be in China or in a cave with really good wifi and you’re just as connected to your stuff as you would be sitting at your desk in your office.

This is the tip of the iceberg – and it will be just like Titanic – the one that grossed hundreds of millions of dollars, not the one that sank – and we will find uses and functions and solutions to problems we didn’t even know existed with this platform. It will reduce sales friction, another Google-ism, and make our agents that much more productive. Oh, and we’ll be writing a six-figure check to Google for these services while providing this to our agents at no additional charge. Carpenter Realtors partners with our agents and continues to look for agent friendly tools to enhance their value proposition.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

2012 Carpenter REALTORS Sales Rally

2012-01-25T19:04:11Z

Carpenter will bring together its real estate professionals from throughout central Indiana to celebrate their accomplishments, share best practices and announce new programs and exciting enhancements to our marketing tools.

These programs and enhancements are focused on supporting our agents and providing maximum value for our sellers. We’ll be sharing more details shortly…and you’ll be seeing our RED TEAM throughout central Indiana!

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Prudential Leaves Relocation and Real Estate Business

2011-12-14T17:30:55Z

Last week, Brookfield Residential Property Services purchased Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services from its parent, Prudential Financial. Brookfield is a current player in the relocation industry and will inherit the operations center of Prudential, with its US headquarters in Phoenix, AZ. You can read the Brookfield press release on the Wall Street Journal’s site here.

On the real estate operations side, Brookfield indicated that the current Prudential franchise members will be able to continue using the Prudential name under the terms of their existing franchise agreements. Brookfield currently owns a number of real estate franchise brands including Royal LePage in Canada and Real Living here in the US. It will be interesting to see what strategy they deploy with their newly acquired franchisees. We saw something similar to this when Carpenter was a long standing member of the Better Homes and Gardens franchise that was purchased by GMAC. Within a few years, our brand identity had to change – no small undertaking. Ultimately it worked out, as it was a catalyst to take control of our own local brand image and we became an independent member of the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World. Change is always interesting…

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Central Indiana Soon to be a Seller’s Market?

2011-11-22T11:42:08Z

If you read the headlines or watch the evening news, some days you may think the world is coming to an end. However, if you delve into the statistics you find some information that just might surprise you. For calendar year 2006 Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors (MIBOR), which covers nearly all of central Indiana, reported 65,110 transactions completed, the highest number on record (Note: one sale = two transactions). Last year there were 46,460 transactions – down nearly 29% from the peak. The first part of last year the market was artificially stimulated with the federal tax credit for home buyers. In second half of last year without that stimulus the market ran at a pace of 42,500 transactions. That may sound like bad news, but 2011 is on pace to be up 10% from that level and conditions continue to improve. Was the second half of last year a bottom for the market?

Now for the interesting part…as of November 1st there were just over 15,250 residential listings for sale in the MIBOR system. That’s down 28% from the same time in 2007 and 4% below the same time in 2004! A healthy correction of supply and demand is nearly complete. With the number of homes available for sale on the market shrinking and the tide of sales activity rising by 10%, you may be seeing a swing from a buyers’ to a sellers’ market. Just don’t hold your breath to see it in the headlines yet…

Wondering what things are like in your specific neighborhood? Contact a Carpenter agent and they can provide you with statistics and insight into the value of your home.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

The Housing Market is Getting Better. Consumer Confidence is the Drag.

2011-11-08T05:53:21Z

We’ve just published the latest edition of Carpenter Reports: The Central Indiana Real Estate Market, a quarterly review of central Indiana real estate market activity. For reasons you’ll see in the report, I’ve titled this edition “The Housing Market is Getting Better. Consumer Confidence is the Drag.”

Why? I believe this quarter’s report continues to illustrate that the central Indiana housing market is in a recovery. Any argument that now is a great time to buy a home is more compelling today and that this report supports that.

Over the last quarter almost every county in central Indiana saw lower inventories of single family homes for sale, a necessary and healthy sign of recovery. Six had double-digit declines. With that, we noted double digit increases in sales for the third quarter. With the exception of Shelby, Putnam and Madison Counties, all central Indiana counties experienced solid double digit increases. Again, evidence of a recovering market. Stabilization, and gradual improvement in the Average Sales Price of the homes sold is another key indicator. Compared to the third quarter of 2011, this quarter showed a healthy 2.7% increase in the Average Sales Price.

With these numbers, we anticipate positive comparisons for the fourth quarter of 2011 and early 2012 as the recovery continues to build momentum into Spring.

The biggest challenge to a sustained recovery in central Indiana’s housing market continues to be consumer confidence. The downward trend in the monthly Consumer Confidence Index continues to put a drag on the housing recovery. Despite favorable prices and interest rates, many prospective homebuyers simply lack the confidence in their personal situation to undertake such a major purchase.

At Carpenter, we believe there will be gradual improvement in our housing market over the next few quarters and for years to come. It won’t be a straight-line to recovery. There will be bumps along the way. It will take improving consumer confidence in what the future has to offer to assure us the sustained recovery we all need and want.

Posted by: David Caveness

Big Ten Championship = Economic Activity

2011-09-29T13:42:36Z

Indianapolis has long been known as the Amateur Athletics Capitol of the World. In continuing that tradition, Indianapolis will be hosting the first ever Big Ten College Football Championship game on December 5th. Okay…great…interesting…so what you might say?

Did you know that the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association estimates the economic impact to the city from this event at $17.7 million? To put this in perspective, that’s estimated to equal 1/3rd of the entire NBA Pacers season!

Indianapolis is currently scheduled to host this annual event through 2015. Kudos to those involved in securing this opportunity. Not only does this provide economic growth, but it is another great opportunity to showcase our city. The Big Ten released an initial batch of 20,000 tickets for sale – they sold out in less than 2 hours and those tickets were purchased from 46 different states.

Hopefully your team will be there, but regardless we are all a winner in this venture. So be sure to be an ambassador of the city to our guests that week. You never know, a future buyer just might be visiting.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

REALTOR® Foundation Awareness Week

2011-09-12T10:01:28Z

REALTORS® don’t just sell houses.

Today marks the start of the 5th Annual REALTOR Foundation Awareness Week. The REALTOR® Foundation is a non-profit entity dedicated to serving the philanthropic needs of those interested in solving homelessness in central Indiana. The Foundation has granted more than $100,000 this year to deserving charities and organizations on the front lines of homelessness. This week’s activities include a chance to give, a chance to help, and there’s one thing you can always count on with REALTORS® – a chance to eat!

Give: Financial support for the Foundation is always welcome and this week REALTORS® are encouraged to set up Transactional Giving - an automatic donation each time the close a property. You can also make a donation here.
Help: Volunteers can roll up their sleeves and help with clean up and planting in the St. Claire Place area on Sept 16th from 9am – noon. To sign up contact Claire Bleby at 317-956-5232 or .
Eat: Feed the Fight is a Taste of Indy event that will be held at Flat 12 Bierwerks on Sept 14th. Get a behind the scenes tour of the brewery and enjoy food and beverage tastings from a number of local establishments.

So there’s a little something for everyone this week. As I was writing this today I thought back to yesterday, September 11th. I was lucky enough to enjoy a beautiful day on the golf course. As we finished putting out on the final hole, as is often the custom, we shook hands and thanked each player for coming. I didn’t play very well, but I mentioned to one of the gentlemen as we walked off that regardless of my score playing a round of golf was certainly better than reading the names of a friend or loved one at the 9/11 Memorial as we had watched that morning. We reflected quietly for a moment and then each headed home. Today I find myself reflecting just a bit differently …I’m thankful for that home I went to last night. Thankful for the clean bed, the shower, and the pantry full of food. According to the REALTOR® Foundation website there were over 1,500 people in central Indiana who didn’t have that luxury last night. Even more eye-opening, it’s estimated that 16% of those are children under the age of 18.

This would be a good week to make a difference.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Sprint’s new Power User Phone

2011-09-07T15:25:27Z

Sprint released the Motorola Photon 4G last month and I finally used my upgrade eligibility that had been burning a hole in my pocket since June 1st. I considered the HTC EVO 3D but I felt like the 3D capability was more of a gimmick and the rest of the phone wasn’t much different from the EVO 4G I already had (the 3D is a faster phone with a dual-core phone vs. the Evo 4G’s single core, etc.). I also really waffled on whether I should hold out for the iPhone 5 strongly rumored to be coming to Sprint this month or next but in the end I decided I was too entrenched with Google and Android to jump ship for Apple. I even gave my wife full control of the iPad and bought myself a Motorola Xoom (no, I don’t own stock in the-soon-to-be-purchased-by-Google Motorola Mobility).

I use gmail as my main personal email account, I have used Google Music Beta for a couple months and absolutely love it, I’ve purchased some apps from the Google app store and, really, being a tech geek and tinkerer I like Android for its less rigid approach to the operating system. So for me, I just felt I couldn’t leave all that for Apple’s iOS, even though I do believe the iPhone is a great phone.

The Motorola Photon 4G has a dual-core processor and a full gigabyte of ram which both allow the phone to run much smoother than previous phones with a single core and 512MB (half) ram. Videos recorded on my old Evo tended to be choppy, especially in playback. On the Photon 720p videos I’ve recorded have been very smooth and likewise played very smoothly.

The Photon has a high resolution display with inky blacks and vibrant colors. It has what’s called a pentile display that some don’t like but that would not include me – I love the display on this phone. There’s an 8 megapixel camera on back and a front facing camera for video chatting.

Unlike most other phones not named iPhone the Photon comes with 16GB of memory built-in and also has a micro-SD slot to add up to 32GB more memory to the phone. The phone is a world phone meaning it has GSM radios used in most of the world. Sprint does not lock the sim outside the U.S. on the Photon so if you take the phone to Europe, for example, you can buy a foreign sim card and use a local number rather than paying roaming fees, or as is the case with most Sprint and Verizon phones, have no service at all.

I should really emphasize how well engineered Motorola phones are as well. The radios in this phone are outstanding. I get more signal bars with this phone than I did with my Evo and many times I get reception where others are getting no signal and it has been consistently good at picking up a strong signal and giving me solid reception.

The phone also has some nice security features, including the option to encrypt the phone and any memory card installed so in the case of a lost phone your data remains unreadable. Motorola also has the unique WebTop functionality allowing you to plug the Photon into a dock and use your phone with a monitor or your HDTV and soon a laptop dock powered by the Photon (similar to the Atrix available on AT&T). I could easily see plugging the Photon into a client’s high-def TV and flipping through photos of homes or even doing a presentation from the phone. I plugged mine into a TV at my house and it just worked – no complicated setup required.

For a business user such as a real estate agent, the Photon is an excellent choice giving you a speedy feature-packed phone that will work anywhere in the world and keep you connected.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

Carpenter's new agents "get" it

2011-09-06T16:11:43Z

Just spent a couple of days with our latest training class. I like these guys. Most classes have a few dynamic future success stories … with a few of the opposite. Sometimes they’re death on wheels. And a few rare groups like this one give us a reason to be excited.

On Thursday, sharing the Carpenter Marketing offerings with them, they not only stayed alert (sometimes a challenge when I’m in front of a group) but it was obvious they were paying close attention. From our co-op advertising programs to details on their free CRM program and websites to a full-on discussion of the value of good photography, they proved themselves ready to get out there and make something happen. Today, reviewing out custom website options for our agents, they got it. They got the value of having a full site and the value of custom content. And they really got it when we did the hands-on, get-your-site-looking-good training. One of the easiest groups to work with from step one.

I’m looking forward to early next week when we review our CRM offerings, with contact management, drip email campaigns, neighborhood reports and more. It’s the best value and most important banana in the bunch.

It’s interesting. As a new agent, you have to figure they’re concentrating on selling homes. And we stress technique and tools. But when they understand and also get excited about the marketing opportunities we provide - helping them brand themselves, providing a full, free CRM program, offering custom websites, providing programs to offset their advertising costs – other “sit-on-your-laurels” agents at companies who don’t provide these benefits should start watching their backs.

So, newbies, if you’re reading this, thanks for a good couple of days.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Carpenter Realtors' Report shows a slight improvement in Indiana housing

2011-08-16T15:19:00Z

In the spring of 2010, the second of two Federal Tax Credits for home purchases ended. During the spring of 2011, the lingering impact was still with us.

Carpenter Realtors® has just published the latest Carpenter Reports, a quarterly review of central Indiana’s real estate market, covering home sales, prices, price per square foot and pended sales. As we track these statistics we see the tax credit’s impact in year-over-year comparisons. But don’t be fooled by comparing today’s housing data against the distortion caused by the Tax Credit. The current housing trends are positive and the local real estate market is improving.

In Carpenter Reports we see the signs: listing Inventory continues to decline and the trending numbers in pendings and sale prices during the second quarter of 2011 are positive, off very low levels throughout the second half of 2010 and early 2011.

The national and local economy continues to improve, albeit very slowly. That slow improvement will transfer to the housing market. With consumer confidence a critical element in home sales, the combination of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, along with the dysfunction of our government in Washington and its seeming inability to address our fiscal challenges was challenging. In April, consumer confidence showed slight improvement but suffered setbacks in May, June and July. As consumer confidence struggles to gain footing so too will the residential real estate market.

I have faith we’ll continue to see a gradual improvement in the local economy, in consumer confidence and in our real estate market. There will undoubtedly be bumps in the road but the improvement should be relatively steady going forward.

Posted by: David Caveness

Ride the Recovery

2011-08-01T14:50:05Z

This Blog is the sixth and final installment in the series on The 6 Reasons Today May be the Best Time in 40 years to Buy a Home. Our focus today is Reason # 5: “Now is a Unique Time to Ride the Economic Recovery.”

Despite the chaos in Washington over addressing the nation’s fiscal health, the evidence being presented by economists is that our economy is in recovery; albeit anemic. As the national and local economies continue to slowly grow out of this recession, the housing market will begin to grow as well. There are still a number of economists who will argue the housing market will lead the economic recovery in the coming months and years. As the recovery takes shape, demand will become more balanced with supply. We’re seeing signs of that in our local central Indiana market today as listing inventories shrink. Home prices will begin to rise in response. Again, we are seeing that take shape in our local stats.

Those homebuyers who take advantage of the depressed housing market and purchase property now will experience greater growth in their equity over the coming years. Those buyers will have ridden the wave of economic recovery in housing.

Posted by: David Caveness

It IS a good time to buy a home for sale - home prices are down!

2011-07-25T19:42:15Z

Is now the best time for you to buy a home? For many, it is. For some, it is not. But the majority of families do have the confidence in their personal situation to pursue the “American Dream” of home ownership.

Carpenter Realtors® report, The 6 Reasons Today May be the Best Time in 40 years to Buy a Home outlines why today is a great time to buy a home. We have already addressed three of those reasons. Today, I want to focus on the fact that Home Prices are Down.

Many of us are seeing local and national articles and news shows telling us home prices are up. If home prices are down, how can they be up? It is important to understand they are touting that the average prices of homes that have sold are up... not that the individual prices of specific homes are actually up. What I’m trying to say is that it’s likely the value (reflected in the price someone is willing to pay) of a specific home is flat or down a few percentage points from the value of that same home in 2006. Nationally, that could be as much as 30% from the peak.

Generally, the news reports you hear and read are simply saying the average prices of homes that are selling now are higher than the average prices of homes sold last year or in years past. Those numbers are distorted due to the mix of homes being sold.

With the actual values of homes generally being down from 2006 or 2007, it means a homebuyer can acquire more house for the dollar today. As the economy continues to recover over the coming months and years, home values are expected to rise. We believe the values of specific homes are at or near the bottom and will begin to increase as well.

If your personal situation allows you to move forward with confidence and buy a home, you don’t want to be looking back at this moment in time 6, 12 or 18 months from now wishing you had taken advantage of the opportunity. Today is the best time in 40 years to buy a home, if you’re ready.

Posted by: David Caveness

Carpenter's GFC Fundraiser - It's Not Just About Selling Houses

2011-07-08T15:56:00Z

Although the selling houses part is important, it’s not just about selling houses. It’s about giving back.

And so, the weather, golfers and our vendor hosts all turned out for the 2011 GFC/Carpenter Realtors® golf classic fundraiser.

On June 17th, at Noblesville’s Pebblebrook Golf Course, our 18th annual fundraising golf outing came off without a hitch, and raised more than $20,000 for Indianapolis’ Gennesaret Free Clinic (GFC), which provides free medical and dental care to adults and children in need.

Thanks to a ton (technically more like 3-4 tons) of Carpenter volunteers, our guests – both golfers and hosts, enjoyed an incredible day of food, golf, fun, more food and prizes. Our golfing teams consisted of dozens of top Carpenter agents to host foursomes to the occasional ringer. Word was that they all enjoyed a great day. The weather was perfect, the course was in fantastic shape and no one went hungry of thirsty. Both lunch and dinner are served and there were many games and prizes. Ask us about the hula hole. Cold beverage, brats, ice cream were the hits of the day.

Anyone have a story to tell? Share them with us!

Many thanks to our big sponsors of the day. We hope you’re back again next year.

Major Hosts

- Bailey and Wood Financial Group

- Bardach Awards

- Dee Sign

Lunch and Dinner Host

- Malone’s Catering

Vacation Raffle Host

- H.S.A. Home Warranty

Hole-in-one Host

- US Bank Home Mortgage

Shirt Host

- Indianapolis Star

And … Arbor Homes, Managepoint, QuantumDigital, Community Association Services of Indiana, Lawyer’s Title, Chicago Title, Stonegate Mortgage, First American Title, LPS, Andrew White, Citizen’s Bank, Investors Titlecorp, Meridian Title Corporation, Realty Wholesale Carpet, SoJo Title Agency, Catalyst Construction Management, PrimeLending.

Carpenter Realtors® has been involved with Gennesaret Free Clinic for over 20 years. In that time, we’ve raised nearly $1,000,000 to benefit GFC.

GFC provides free medical and dental care to persons in need through the volunteer efforts of doctors, nurses, dentists and clerks. The health care services GFC provides are needed now more than ever and are vital to keeping the homeless and working poor in our community healthy.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Improving real estate conditions

2011-06-21T00:00:00Z

The Indianapolis Star ran a front page story this morning with the headline “An unwelcome surprise: May home sales slip 15%.” I was perplexed by this headline because the Carpenter management team has been discussing and analyzing market statistics as we always do. Because of this, I knew that May 2011 was a much stronger month than the previous May. So what’s the old saying…the devil’s in the details. Well, the first several paragraphs of the article are apparently comparing CLOSED sales. In that case, it is not surprising at all that May 2010, the month following the end of the tax incentive, is higher than May 2011. It is not until you turn back to page six and nearly the last paragraph of the article that you get a better picture of how the month performed. “The number of pending sales in May was up a robust 37.7 percent in the metro area and 32.6 percent statewide compared with the same month last year.” Down 15% vs. up 37.7%. Wow, what a different picture…sure closings are down because most transactions take 30-45 days from contract to close and April 2010 just before the tax expiration was one of the highest contract months in years. However, pendings, buyers and sellers coming to together and entering into contracts, are up 37.7%. Karl Berron, chief executive of the state Realtors group, is quoted thereafter, “Realtors from around the state are reporting high interest and activity. We are past the worst and looking to grow.”

The bottom line – headlines are fine, details are better. Real estate transactions are being done and a recovery is in process. It still remains the best time in decades to purchase a home. Don’t take my word for it…search nearly all central Indiana listings on our website and see for yourself.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Move your "Stuff" to the Cloud

2011-06-15T11:40:00Z

Cloud computing is in the news more and more these days, as newer players such as Google and Amazon have pushed the older traditional players such as Microsoft and even Apple to abandon the PC as the “center of the computing universe” and move services to the Internet. This change was coming, whether we wanted it to or not, and really is happening rather organically due to changes in our habits and consumer preferences. New laptop releases are ho-hum affairs that no one pays any attention to these days. Everything these days is about smartphones and tablets and apps. We still use our PCs, we’re just not that excited about them anymore because they aren’t our only or most used Internet device. Steve Jobs calls this the post-PC era and I think he’s right.

So it’s a natural thing to want all our “stuff” that still sits on our PC’s and until recently was the only practical place to keep our digital belongings – photos, music, email, documents and the like – to be on our other, more used devices like our iPads, iPhones, Android devices, secondary PCs and even shared computers. And now the pieces are in place for that to happen and there are many benefits to moving our digital stuff to the cloud.

With our devices freed from the PC we have access to all our things no matter where we are and what device we’re using. For example, Google Music (currently in invite-only beta) lets you upload all your music files to Google’s servers (the Cloud) and then access them either by streaming the music or by downloading it to other devices such as an Android phone. No more syncing or storage limits. I have over 60GB of music (over 7,000 songs according to Google’s count) and now every last song is available to me whenever I sign in with my Gmail account and without filling up my phone’s storage card.

Apple just announced their iCloud service which will replace the over-priced MobileMe service and will be free. You will no longer need a PC or a Mac to sync your iPhone or iPad. Your PC will be demoted to just another device that syncs to the cloud so photos you take with your iPhone will automatically appear on your iPad and PC through the Internet – no cables to connect, not even to activate a new phone.

Another big shift is in document creation, storage and sharing. Many people have already moved off the PC-with-Microsoft Office paradigm to Google Docs, Dropbox and Microsoft Live. Google Docs comes free with your Gmail account and allows you to upload existing Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files to Google Docs and also to create new documents from within Google Docs. You can then share them by supplying the recipients email address or you can download the file in .docx or openoffice formats (or other applicable formats) and simply email the file (the old school approach).

The benefits of this approach should be obvious – you have anywhere, anytime, any device access to your documents that you can invite others to collaborate with you on and you have no software to purchase, no computer to maintain, no files to back up and total simplicity in sharing. I am quite certain we have signed our last Microsoft Office license contract and will instead move to this model.

Microsoft in turn has offered their version of Office in the Cloud with Office Live, a free service offering a light version of Word, Excel and Powerpoint that should suit most non-Power users of Office. If you aren’t creating a web page or linking multiple spreadsheets to each other than the online versions of these programs should work great for you. You’ll need a Windows Live ID (like a Hotmail account) and you’ll get 25GB of storage in your SkyDrive in which to store documents. You can upload documents just like Google Docs and can share documents with others as well.

In our offices, we have Microsoft Office installed on three or four computers per office. When a document is created and saved on that one PC it can only be accessed again from that one PC and if someone is using that public computer when you need access to that file, or someone deletes or alters that document you are out of luck. You have no privacy or security and only one place to get to your documents. If instead Google Docs or Office Live is used, you have total control, privacy and security and access from any machine and with no software costs – so you can use your own devices rather than a shared machine.

With this shift the device you’re on becomes less important than the service you are connecting to. We’re moving to a TV-like model; like a television only displays content rather than creating it, your device will let you access and manipulate data but won’t be as responsible for it since it won’t store it and in many cases won’t be responsible for the actual processing. Your device (tablet, television, smartphone, laptop) will simply be a display and interface device and the content providers will handle software updates and data storage and backup making life much simpler for the average user who just wants to get things done and not concern themselves with the technical hurdles and headaches.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

"Packaging" a home for sale

2011-05-27T15:01:54Z

It seems I’m always on the bandwagon about marketing homes for sale. About how Carpenter Realtors® has the most effective and most comprehensive program to market homes for sale. How we consistently promote listings better than the competition.

But as a marketer, I can’t just consider promotion and take the day off. In fact, promotion is only one of marketing’s “P”s that I consider. Doesn’t the business world now has five “P”s in marketing: Price, Place, Promotion, Package and Product? (I’ve seen four, five and seven. Can’t we all just agree?) In real estate, we have input in three P's: Price, Promotion and Packaging.

Pricing a home for sale is best left to the agent, who has the knowledge and the tools to advise the homeowner on their options. A home for sale must be priced “competitively” in order to sell quickly and near list price. A good agent and cooperative homeowner will always make the right call.

Promotion. That’s what we do, what we reconsider and what we retool every day in order to stay ahead of the pack. It’s the Carpenter Home Marketing System, an exclusive package of online and offline promotional opportunities that has been shown to better expose a home for sale to more potential buyers. Ask any good marketer and they’ll tell you the key to promotion is just that: expose a product to the greatest number of potential buyers

Now for packaging. I’m not talking about a box on a shelf, or a logo on the box, or a usage claim below the logo. I’m talking about packaging a home for sale - prepping it for the best showing it can have. Can’t tell you where this came from, but I recall a study where 63% of consumers make a product purchase decision according to the packaging and decoration. You can bet that this number is much greater when it comes to buying a home.

In packaging a home for sale, consider these important points: photos; curb appeal; cleaning/clutter; paint/carpet. Too often we see agents and homeowners who ignore/forget packaging a home – the way it appears “on the shelf.”

The part of packaging I want to talk about is photos. The listing agent can control the quality of their photography. The homeowner can expect quality photography of their home. The broker can train their agents to take quality photos.

More than nine of ten homebuyers use the internet to search for their new home. By the time they even have a discussion with an agent, they’ve considered hundreds of homes. I call that process “speed dating.” A web visitor gives any home for sale a few second of consideration to decide on an “online showing.” Those few seconds, in seeing the price, reading the short description and … viewing the primary photos … makes it or breaks it. Thus the speed dating. We have a few seconds to convince a buyer to do go on a date, i.e. an online showing, which can result in a second, live showing. The primary photo is, well, primary, in their decision. Crummy photo = poor packaging = lazy agent. Quality photo – good packaging = involved, active agent.

At Carpenter, we’re always training our agents on how to take the very best listing photos possible. Training, coercing, nudging, yeah sometimes even a polite shove. All the promotion and pricing in the world can’t overcome poor packaging.

Posted by: Jim Newell

The Relocation- Directors Council (RDC)

2011-05-26T14:40:39Z

I had the privilege of attending the spring meeting of the Relocation Director’s Council last week. RDC is a truly dynamic organization that brings together the most experienced Relocation Directors from across the US. Relocation Directors wear many hats, but most are typically the liaison between real estate companies and corporations that need assistance in relocating existing or new hire employees. Membership in the RDC organization is based on an individual’s experience and the recommendation of his peers, versus any franchise or company affiliation. The RDC website sums it up rather nicely:

Collaborate – Educate – Innovate

The meeting was well attended with over 100 leaders in relocation services sharing ideas and gathering the most recent industry information.

Many corporations and third party relocation companies prefer to utilize real estate companies whose Relocation Director is an RDC member. At this meeting, I had the opportunity to host several round table discussions about enhancements and new ideas in training real estate agents in the niche of relocation. The conversation was lively and the ideas superb. Technological advances continue and relocation trained agents are often the most savvy. Training focuses on the marriage of market knowledge and technical knowhow, all coming together to provide a faster, less stressful relocation for the transferring family. So the next time you or one of your co-workers are relocating, be sure to call on an RDC member…you’ll be glad you did.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Apps to put your iPad to work

2011-05-23T00:00:00Z

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud storage service (the cloud = a server connected somewhere to the Internet but “the cloud” sounds cooler) that lets you upload, store and access files on your iPad, PC, Android device, and Blackberry. You install the app or program on your device and create a free account. You get 2GB of storage for free and you have the option of purchasing more storage space if you so desire. Once you have documents uploaded you can access them from any of the other devices where you installed Dropbox. In addition, you can share documents with another user by simply providing their email address. This is a useful option for those files that are too large to email.

Another nice benefit to Dropbox is the built-in viewers. You can open Word documents, PDF files, jpeg photos, etc. from within Dropbox without having to install any other software (however, you can only view, not edit them from within Dropbox).

Many Realtors are using Dropbox to share and store purchase agreements and the like. A really easy way to get your Powerpoint presentations on your iPad is to save them as PDF's from within PowerPoint and then upload them to Dropbox. From your iPad you can open them directly in Dropbox.

Google Docs

If you have a Gmail account then you have access to Google Docs. You can create, edit and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations. You can upload any kind of file such as PDF, jpeg, etc. but can’t edit those file types from within Google Docs. The advantage to Google Docs over Dropbox is the ability to edit documents as well as storing them. From within your Gmail account you will see “documents” across the top of the screen and it works in the iPad’s Safari browser as well as your PC and Android device.

Konica Minolta Pagescope Mobile

Search for “Konica Minolta” in the App store. This app will allow you to print to the Bizhub color copiers in our offices. You can print documents from your iPad and scan documents to your iPad. You can also get documents via email from within the app if you add your email account. If it automatically finds the copier in your office there isn’t much you need to do to get it printing. If not you’ll probably need to put in a call so we can walk you through manually adding the copier.

HP iPrint

This is a similar app to the Konica Minolta Pagescope app but instead prints to networked HP printers. I have an HP inkjet on my home network and the app allows me to print photos from my iPad (and also my Android phone as there is an Android version of the app). One extra benefit is the app will act as a viewer for PDF documents. Thanks to the tiff between Adobe and Apple over flash there is no Adobe PDF viewer for the iPad or iPhone.

Callcarpenter.com

You don’t need an actual “app” to have the same functionality of an app. The iPad has the excellent Safari browser built-in and the full callcarpenter.com website works quite well in it. You have mobile access to the best local and neighborhood information available in Central Indiana and in addition you can switch to the mobile version of the site and use the GPS home search to find properties close to wherever you are right now. If you still want an "App" you can create an icon that opens the Callcarpenter.com site or your favorite page within Callcarpenter.com.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

The paperless presentation finally is upon us

2011-05-19T13:32:57Z

I remember the days when everyone thought that laptops were going to become the ultimate presentation tool, where CMA’s and listing presentations would never be presented on paper again. I personally put a lot of effort into making that work for many of our Realtors. Maybe for some people that happened, but I mostly saw laptops fizzle because they were awkward to use with a client – being bulky and slow to boot among other problems. Certainly they are very useful for day-to-day work like checking email and cruising the Internet, but I don’t think the form factor works as a presentation tool.

A few months ago, I had a change of heart when I started to see how the Apple iPad could be used simply and effectively in front of a client. Not used as a tool for the sake of using it (in other words when it would have been easier and more effective to just use a printed presentation) but used because it was a better method of presenting the material. I mean, stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the iPad just works and nothing can be easier than flicking your finger across a screen to move from slide to slide. And the last time I checked you can’t embed a video into a piece of paper (they’re getting close though…) so showing off things like our weekly TV show or our listings on YouTube are possible on an iPad and also practical (unlike the less wieldy laptop).

I think any tablet works as far as form is concerned because the size is just a little smaller than a letter size piece of paper and easy to pass around and hold. However, right now the iPad is the tablet to buy because it is literally years ahead of any competitors due to its use of the same operating system that is tried and true on iPhones. It also has the best app support for a tablet. I use an Android phone so I am not an Apple fanboy by any stretch, but it’s a different argument when you talk about tablets. Google’s Honeycomb operating system is their first effort in expanding Android to the tablet form factor and I don’t think it’s totally fleshed out yet. On top of that, the Xoom (the only Android tablet you can compare to the iPad with a straight face IMHO) costs $100 more than the wifi iPad2. And right now you can buy the original iPad for $349 from Apple if you buy the refurbished model. The refurbished model comes in a new outer shell so it’s indistinguishable from a “new” iPad and comes with the same 1-year warranty from Apple. To put my money where my mouth is, that’s the iPad I purchased for myself. I’ve had it for a couple months and I haven’t regretted the decision to buy a refurb or to pass on the iPad2.

My next blog is going to be about the apps and ways to make life easier with the iPad – things like Dropbox, Google Docs and putting a PowerPoint presentation on your tablet.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

May. Indy. Speed.

2011-05-12T16:34:31Z

It’s May in Indianapolis. No matter what your favorite sport or your attitude about open-wheel racing, it’s a different month here than anywhere else.

Growing up in Indianapolis, I have some extremely vivid memories of the Indy 500 in its heyday. Was it the legend of the one-name drivers (Parnelli; A.J.; Mario)? Was it the fact that it was all this town was known for (like Chicago and gangsters! Like L.A. and movie stars! Like Florida and old people! Like Seattle and rain! Like … well, you get the point). Whatever it was, May was race month. The reason to even have a “May” on the calendar was to allow us four weeks leading up to the race.

So what made the month so different? Use to be it was a full four weeks of practice, qualifying and racing. Not only did Speedway shut down, most of Indianapolis did too. Offices were half-empty many days with the staff taking “off-site” meetings. Retailers wrote the month off, since no one purchased anything that wasn’t replacing something that broke or didn’t have the word “beer” in the name. Half the TV news was track-related. And though I wasn’t in the real estate business then, I imagine the number of homes sold was nowhere near the percentage of annual sales you’d see in other cities.

And for me? I was simply a younger, more vulnerable person then. It was too easy for someone to convince me to blow off the day and sit in the sun with a cold one. Too easy to get me to stay up all night in a muddy parking lot, just to get a good parking spot in the infield where you could see forty feet of racetrack … from the roof of the van. Heck, I even bought a replica pace car.

Today it’s still great racing and great fun, albeit with foreign-sounding names, and only two weeks of it. Though most business is the “normal” that most cities would see in May, we still take the occasional off-site meeting. As for real estate, it’s already starting off as a very good month, especially compared to 2010. We’ve sold a bunch of homes to people who understand there are some great values out there.

Thinking about buying a home? If you want, we can even get you into that Speedway-area home in time to park cars in your front yard on race day. Now that’s old school.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Putting some effort into marketing luxury homes

2011-05-03T11:47:07Z

Typically, Carpenter Realtors® is not known for having a large inventory of what would be described as luxury homes- those larger, higher-priced homes with more amenities and creature comforts. Call it geography or outdated perceptions, consumers often don’t think of Carpenter as an option to sell their luxury home. Whatever the reason, we actually put more effort into, and are more successful at, selling those McMansions.

Here’s a great example: On Sunday, the Indianapolis Star published a special homefinder real estate section. This section, called Tour of Luxury Homes,” focused on … well, luxury homes.

In that section, the editorial discussed the lifestyle and amenities of living in a luxury home. The advertising portion of the section allowed agents to promote their $275,000+ Indianapolis and central Indiana homes for sale. Now, if I were a normal agent, I’d take advantage of every opportunity to promote my clients’ higher-end luxury homes for sale. Which shows, once again, why I’m not normal.

Obviously, those brokers and agents who claim to specialize in luxury homes don’t feel the need to market those luxury homes to potential buyers. Maybe just a sign in the yard is enough? Out of all the luxury homes advertised in the Indy Star’s special section, Carpenter agents represented 23% of the advertising. Two of the hoity-toity brokers on the north side who claim to be specialists in luxury homes had 11% and 7% of the ad space purchased. In fact, Carpenter agents had as many ads as three of the supposed “top” companies in high-end properties.

Really, people – is that the best you can do for your luxury home sellers? Promoting their home to 300,000 educated newspaper subscribers isn’t good enough? Maybe you’re right. The yard sign is seen by literally dozens of people every day. Your web site generates dozens, if not hundreds of visitors a day. The newspaper can’t match those numbers.

Carpenter’s exclusive Home Marketing System is an aggressive total package to market a home for sale to the greatest number of potential buyers. From our Indy Star ads (including Home of the Day) to the best web real estate site in Indiana (including GPS HomeSearch) to our TV Showcase of Homes to … well, you get the point.

Gotta go. Time to change some old perceptions!

Posted by: Jim Newell

callcarpenter.com's real estate web site quality certification

2011-04-27T15:44:39Z

According to the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, it appears that our hard work at making callcarpenter.com the best real estate home for sale search website in Indiana is paying off.

I’ll quote: “Congratulations! You have successfully completed the requirements to earn the 2010 LeadingRE Website Quality Certification (WQC) designation.”

In order to help its members provide the most complete, efficient and enjoyable web experience, LeadingRE organized a panel of impartial web experts. The panel reviewed members’ web sites and graded the sites in a number of categories. All based on, and from, the consumer’s viewpoint – as in member websites were reviewed thoroughly and looked at through the eyes of a consumer.

The primary categories included:

Site design Is this real estate website easy-to-use? Is this site focused on its real estate product? Can visitors easily find content?Search experience Does the consumer have all the home for sale search criteria they’d want? Are the results easily identified and sorted and displayed well?Relevant content Is the site’s content relevant to a home for sale search? Is there a plethora (word of the day!) of information on local communities – with the most detailed statistics? Can the consumer find all the information they need/want in their home search on this site?

After that review, Carpenter was awarded the Quality Certification designation. Judging was based on a scale of 1-10 in 6 categories. Only companies that received a minimum 45 out of 60 points received the WQC. Callcarpenter.com scored 51 out of 60. Next year we're shooting for a perfect 60. Can’t be that tough. We’re almost there already.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Best Time to Buy in 40 Years!

2011-04-25T15:26:42Z

This is the fourth blog in a series of six blogs based on my "Six Reasons TODAY may be the BEST TIME in 40 Years to BUY A HOME."

Today, I'm focused on Reason #3: Housing Inventories are High. To update the original report the current inventory in the MIBOR BLC is 16,317 homes as of April 18, 2011. That’s down a bit from last fall when the report was first drafted. But, the premise is still solid. There is an excellent selection of homes available in every price range. And, just as we outlined in the report, the high inventory represents increased competition for those serious sellers. Sellers who are motivated to move are forced to have their property in “move-in“ condition and to have it priced aggressively to attract buyers. This is truly a great time to be a home-buyer in central Indiana!

If your personal situation allows you to move forward with confidence and buy a home, do it now, because TODAY is the best time in 40 years to buy a home.

Feel free to download the attached "The 6 Reasons TODAY May Be the BEST TIME in 40 Years to Buy a Home" for the entire report.

Posted by: David Caveness

The Future Looks Bright for Corporate Relocation

2011-04-22T07:19:26Z

Like many parts of the economy, corporate relocation has been negatively affected by the challenges in the economy. With the average cost to move an existing home-owning employee topping $90,000 (Worldwide ERC Survey), many companies moved relocation from the necessity to discretionary category.

But as they say, this too shall pass. Corporate relocation activity in central Indiana, though slowly, is picking up. Pent-up relocations that have been on hold for two years or more are now starting to develop. Further evidence can be found in Atlas Van Lines 44th Annual Corporate Relocation Survey. The survey results were based on the responses from over 400 corporate individuals responsible for employee relocation. Here are two items that really caught my eye:

30% of companies plan to relocate a worker this year, the highest percentage in 6 years87% of companies said they will spend as much or more on relocation this year as in 2010, the highest percentage since 2007

The corporate relocation industry has a long way to recover. It won’t happen overnight, but the tea leaves certainly point to better times ahead.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

18th golf outing benefits GFC Clinic

2011-04-19T15:28:29Z

We’ve gone and done it again. We’ve scheduled our annual GFC/Carpenter Realtors® golf classic fundraiser.

The 18th Annual Golf Classic will be held on June 17 at Noblesville’s Pebblebrook Golf Course. Proceeds benefit Indianapolis’ Gennesaret Free Clinic (GFC), which provides free medical and dental care to adults and children in need.

Golfer or possible sponsor? Be there. Everyone is welcome to participate. It’s been described (by impartial participants) as one of the best outings they attend each year. Both lunch and dinner are served and there are fun games and prizes. Plus, you’re never more than a few steps away (literally) from a cold beverage, brat or ice cream. Golfing and gaining weight – an American tradition! It’s a chance for companies, past clients, friends and neighbors to join us and enjoy the day while supporting a very worthy cause.

Carpenter Realtors® has been involved with Gennesaret Free Clinic for over 20 years, raising over $900,000 to benefit GFC.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Indianapolis – “Sports Town USA”

2011-04-01T16:30:36Z

For decades, Indianapolis has been known as the amateur sports capital of the world. This weekend the city gets to showcase once again why it has been honored with that distinction. While the local Butler University Men’s Basketball team will be competing in Houston in the Final Four, the NCAA Women’s Division I Basketball Championship will be played here at Conseco Fieldhouse. Conseco is shrine to basketball and a beautiful facility to watch a game or take in a concert. This year’s Women’s Final Four features UConn vs. Notre Dame and Stanford vs. Texas A&M. You can see the road each of these teams took through the field of 64 by clicking on the bracket here.

There is nothing like basketball in the state of Indiana – surely you’ve seen Hoosiers, just ask Gene Hackman! Notre Dame certainly brings a hometown flare to the championship, but so does UConn. The Huskies’ sophomore starting guard, #34 Kelly Faris is a graduate of Heritage Christian here in Indianapolis and led the Eagles to four consecutive state champions. So they’ll be some split loyalty in the crowd I’m sure, but either way it’s going to be a great weekend of basketball and another winning weekend for the city of Indianapolis.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

The True about the 3.8% Obama Tax on Real Estate Sales

2011-03-16T14:34:56Z

You may have heard about a federal tax on the sale of homes buried deep in the recent health care legislation. You may have heard rumors or seen internet stories about how this secret tax (3.8%) applies to every home sale starting now. It is important to understand that much of what you see and read on the internet about this element of the new law is exaggerated and/or inaccurate.

Here’s the truth:
·     There is a new federal tax on part of the gain; for some high income sellers; who have substantial dollar gains on the sale.
·     The new tax is 3.8% on the amount above the existing exemption of the first $250,000 in gain for single taxpayers and $500,000 for married (filing jointly) taxpayers. This exemption only applies if the taxpayers have lived in the home two out of the last five years. In addition, interest, dividends, net rents, net capital gains all fall into this category.
·     The new tax is applied only if the taxpayer has an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $200,000 for a single and $250,000 for married (filing jointly). And then, it only applies to the lesser of the qualified investment income amount or the excess of AGI over the $200,000 or $250,000.
·     The new tax starts for sales in 2013.
·     It is likely the U.S. Supreme Court will be asked to decide if the new law stands before this portion ever takes effect.

This new tax was never introduced, discussed or reviewed by the real estate industry (NAR) and most legislators until just hours before the final debate and vote on the massive health care bill.

To learn more about the new tax law, click here and search “3.8% Tax." They have an excellent booklet with details on a variety of scenarios as well as FAQ’s.

Posted by: David Caveness

Building a Living Legacy

2011-03-07T15:48:18Z

If you are a realtor in central Indiana and are not familiar with “Building a Living Legacy,” you need to become so. In the coming months, the public, your sphere, your neighbors and your clients are going to be exposed to this project and you are going to want to be informed.

The “Building a Living Legacy” is a partnership between the John H. Boner Community Center on Indianapolis’ near eastside, the Super Bowl Legacy Project, and MIBOR’s REALTOR® Foundation. The project is focused on building or renovating 32 homes for “at risk” homeless families on the near eastside of the city. These “at risk” families are coming out of emergency homelessness or are at risk for homelessness. The families receive supportive services through the Center for Working Families at the Boner Center and will work toward home ownership.

The project is well underway. Fundraising by the REALTOR® community began back in 2009. Over $300,000 was quietly raised and announced at the MIBOR President’s Ball in January of 2010. I was there when the announcement was made and the crowd was pleasantly surprised. Another $100,000 was raised by the REALTOR community for this project in 2010. We still have another $100,000 to raise by years-end to meet our obligations.

In addition to raising funds for the project, building has begun. The first of the 32 homes have been completed and the families are being selected. The process of building homes; selecting families; and moving into the properties as they are completed will continue all year. All 32 homes (32 NFL Teams in the League) will be completed and occupied before the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis. AS the publicity for the Super Bowl ramps-up throughout the year, so will the publicity for the Super Bowl legacy Project on the near eastside of the city culminating with the dedication of the homes to the Boner Center during the week of the Super Bowl.

This project has long-term implications for the city and for MIBOR. It will become a true and lastng “legacy” to the commitment of REALTORS® to the City of Indianapolis and to the dream of home ownership for everyone.

The Boner center will continue to maintain the program long after the Super Bowl has occurred. As a family becomes ready to move to a more permanent stage, the Boner Center will insure the 32 “Living Legacy” homes are always present for at-risk homeless families.

The project needs your support. You can be a part of this “Living Legacy." You can donate money to the remaining $100,000 to be raised during 2011. And, you can stay informed. Sign-up to receive The Countdown, our e-newsletter, by e-mailing Molly Hahn at mollyhahn@realtorfoundation.com.

For more information about “Building a Living Legacy”, contact Molly Hahn at 317.956.5255 or visit www.mibor100.com

Posted by: David Caveness

Carpenter Realtors Honored by The Leading Real Estate Companies of the World

2011-03-04T14:49:52Z

The Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® will be holding its international conference at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas next week. I couldn’t be more excited and humbled that Carpenter Realtors® has been nominated for not one…not two…but six different awards! Many of these are a direct testament to the ability and professionalism of the agents that work at Carpenter. Here’s a peak at some of the nominations…

We’ve been nominated among all companies in the network with 500 to 1,000 real estate agents for our Outgoing Referral Production and our Incoming Conversion rate. Outgoing Referral Production means that Carpenter agents have connected a large number of their friends, families, and clients with our outstanding partner LeadingRE companies for real estate services (Outgoing Referrals). LeadingRE really is comprised of the best companies in the country. If you or someone you know needs real estate assistance anywhere in the world, ask a Carpenter agent or call our Client Service Center at 800-630-1727. Locally, the Incoming Conversion nomination represents the fact when our LeadingRE partners send their clients to Carpenter, our agents are among the most effective and efficient in helping those clients close transactions.

In addition to these awards, our Marketing Contest entry for our QR code initiative, the TAG IT! program, has been nominated in the New Media category. Jeremy Page in our Zionsville office has been nominated as one of the networks top bloggers. You can follow his blog about the Anson development in Boone County here. The final two awards we are nominated for are directly related to our website, www.callcarpenter.com. An independent panel of experts analyzed and tested our website over a couple of months. The results - we have been nominated for the search engine optimization (SEO) strategy employed on the site (making it easier for people to find us), as well as the responsiveness and process we have in place to respond to consumers on the site (our lead management program).

Thank you Carpenter agents!

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Relocating the Super Bowl

2011-02-11T15:01:57Z

Well that was a really good game last Sunday. As long time Chicago Bears fan, I can’t say I was happy to see the Packers win (sorry my Milwaukee friends). It’s just against the rules if you grew up watching Walter Payton and you were taught that Mike Ditka could be President, he just doesn’t want to. Anyway, I’ve be thinking a lot this week about how wonderful it’s going to be for Indianapolis to host this event next year. I am quite confident it will be one of the city’s shining moments and the best central Indiana has to offer will step forward. Indianapolis and the surrounding communities are experts not only at entertaining crowds (think Indy 500, NCAA Final Four, Olympic Swimming Trials, Big Ten Basketball Championships, and more), but they are the best at the logistics it takes to move large groups of people safely in and out of the events and venues. Likewise, Lucas Oil Stadium may not have a 200” TV, but it is one of the premier facilities in the country…I know, it took 7 years to see the monster trucks there a couple of weeks ago, but that’s a whole different story.

I am personally excited about the upcoming events and I’ll be writing periodically about the economic and social impact of this great opportunity on our home. If you have any comments or have particular topics surrounding this that you are interested in, please add your comments or contact me directly. Go Colts! (and Bears!)

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Understanding the “Lost Equity Syndrome”

2011-02-10T00:00:00Z

This post is my second in a series relating to our white paper, The 6 Reasons Today May Be the Best Time in 40 Years to Buy a Home. I want to focus on Reason Number 6: Avoiding the “Lost Equity Syndrome.” This is the “Reason” that is often the hardest for buyers to grasp. It really speaks to why now is a good time to sell a home, and then turn around and buy another one…if you’re buying a more expensive home. Many potential “move up” buyers are paralyzed by the fear of losing some of the equity in their current home when selling now. We call this fear the “Lost Equity Syndrome.”

Sellers who want to be buyers are afraid to act now because they don’t want to “take a loss” on the home they have to sell. They don’t want to lose that equity. Here’s what they need to understand about the “Lost Equity Syndrome.” Let’s assume they have a $150,000 home to sell. And, assume they are ”moving up” to a $250,000 home. If they take a 10% “loss of equity” on the sale of their existing home…say $15,000…because of current market softness, doesn’t it make sense that the seller of the “move up” home they intend to buy will be taking a 10% haircut too? 10% of $250,000 is $25,000. The “move up” buyer gains the seller’s “lost equity”. A $25,000 gain net a $15,000 loss means the new “move up” buyer actually comes out $10,000 ahead. It’s critical that potential “move up” buyers really understand how the “Lost Equity Syndrome” works in their favor in today’s real estate market.

Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. For a copy of our white paper, The 6 Reasons Today May Be the Best Time in 40 Years to Buy a Home, contact your local Carpenter office or visit our website, www.callcarpenter.com.

Posted by: David Caveness

The 6 Reasons Today May Be the Best Time in 40 Years to Buy a Home – Reason #1

2011-02-04T00:00:00Z

We recently published a white paper The 6 Reasons Today May Be the Best Time in 40 Years to Buy a Home. I want to focus on only one of those reasons today. Mortgage interest rates. I want to focus on mortgage rates because this is the single “reason” that may be changing the fastest. In fact it might be going away as one of the six reasons. I don’t have a crystal ball and certainly can’t predict the future of mortgage rates, but common sense tells me that with the extent of government deficit spending and the resulting borrowing that is taking place at all levels of government, inflation has to start to surface in the economic picture. I predict sooner than later. As inflationary pressures begin to build in the economy, interest rates must rise. Mortgage rates are not immune to those pressures. They must rise too. As mortgage rates rise, the true cost of housing rises. It’s just a matter of time before one of the “six reasons” goes away. Spread the word, now is the best time!

If you’d like to receive a copy of our white paper, contact a Carpenter Realtors® agent or visit our website.

Posted by: David Caveness

Android does Zimbra Sync, too

2011-02-01T12:00:46Z

Android users (what Verizon calls “Droid”) can also sync to Zimbra but not as seamlessly as iPhones. iPhones have native CalDAV integration, while we have to use a third-party app to handle the CalDAV calendar syncing in Android. It’s a free app, however, so it’s not too much more effort.

I own an HTC Evo 4G running Android 2.2 Froyo. There are a LOT of Android devices out there these days and I obviously can’t test this on all of them (or any of them other than my EVO for that matter) so your mileage may vary, but I think this should be something that should work fairly universally.

First thing we need to do is get the app from Android Market. Go to the market and search for “caldav” and only one app should show up – Calendar (CalDAV) Sync BETA. It’s a free app. Download and install it.

Start the Calendar Sync app and enter your settings, the most important of which is your CalDAV Calendar URL. It uses the format http://m.callcarp.com/dav/{your zimbra username}/Calendar - so, for example, mine is http://m.callcarp.com/dav/gchrist/Calendar since my email address is and thus my username is gchrist. Pay attention to the capital “C” in Calendar at the end of that address and ignore the warning about not syncing over a secured connection.

Your username is your Zimbra username and the Password is your Zimbra password.

You then need to set your Synchronization frequency (how often it syncs with Zimbra), the range of dates it will sync and which calendar. I use Google sync to sync my Outlook calendar with my phone so I chose to have the app sync Zimbra with my gmail calendar (see an earlier blog for info on Google Sync). You can choose whichever calendar works for you. Save your settings and then try “Synchronize Now” to see if it works. If it doesn’t, go back and check your settings and make sure you got the URL, your username and password entered correctly.

Now, on your computer go to http://m.callcarp.com and log into your Zimbra account.

Once in your email, click on the Preferences tab and then click on Calendar along the left side of the screen

Make sure Enable delegation for Apple iCal CalDAV client is checked. Click Save in the upper left.

You should now have your Zimbra and Android phone calendars syncing back and forth so that any appointments you set show up in both calendars.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

Sync your iPhone Calendar with Zimbra

2011-01-31T22:01:00Z

This is a two-part how-to for iPhone and Android users on syncing your Zimbra calendar with your iPhone calendar (part one) or your Android Smartphone (part two).

Steve Jobs really has a vision for how things should work and after adding the calendar to an iPhone and then trying to do the same with Android I have to give props to Apple. First of all CalDAV support is built into iOS on the iPhone (make sure yours is up to date by connecting your phone to your computer and syncing in iTunes) and it just worked – I didn’t have to google the settings or experiment with it. I now have two-way communication between my iPhone’s calendar and Zimbra’s calendar and changes show up fairly quickly on either device.

Here are the steps on your iPhone (using iOS 4.1):

From your iPhone, tap Settings Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars Tap Add Account, then tap Other, then under Calendars tap Add CalDav Account For Server enter m.callcarp.com For User Name enter your Zimbra username. For example, if your email address is dagent@callcarpenter.com then your username is dagent. For Password enter your Zimbra email password then tap Next in the upper right corner When it says Cannot Connect Using SSL, etc. tap Continue.

Click Advanced and make sure the port number is 80 – change it to 80 if it is any other number if you still get an error. I’ve added and re-added the account while making this guide and it set the port to 8080 one time – don’t ask me why.

(Click to Enlarge)

Now, on your computer go to http://m.callcarp.com (did you know that’s the shortcut to log into Zimbra?) and log into your email.

Once in your email, click on the Preferences tab and then click on Calendar along the left side of the screen

(Click to Enlarge)

Make sure Enable delegation for Apple iCal CalDAV client is checked. Click Save in the upper left.

Your iPhone will now sync both ways to the Zimbra server meaning any calendar items added to Zimbra will show up on your iPhone and any calendar items you add to your iPhone will show up in Zimbra’s calendar.

You can adjust the sync interval and how much of your calendar to sync on your iPhone (like, Events 2 weeks back, 6 months back, All Events) by tapping Settings, Mail, Contacts, Calendars and scrolling down to the Calendars section. Tapping Default Calendar lets you choose your Zimbra calendar as the default for your iPhone.

Next, Android…

Posted by: George Christodoulou

Performance, Plans and Attitude in Real Estate

2011-01-25T16:13:01Z

As we prep for tomorrow’s annual Carpenter Sales Rally (and Awards Presentation), I think we’re seeing some more positive growth and improvement in central Indiana home sales.

It’s not just numbers, although the market’s numbers are looking up. This is about last year’s performance, this year’s plans and attitude.

In 2009, Carpenter Realtors® had 45 agents who met a minimum sales achievement for the year and were recognized at our 2010 Rally. This year, 46 agents met that minimum achievement and will be recognized onstage tomorrow. Now I’m no math whiz, but that seems to be about the same number, in a year when the market was down another 10%+. Many of those have been able to keep their sales numbers pretty steady from year-to-year in spite of the economy, the headlines and even the depression that is defining the mood around many offices without the name Carpenter on the door. Some even had a record year, with the greatest number of listings, sales or production in their career.

But that’s all in the past. The only important thing now is the future. At least that’s what we can control. And in Carpenter’s Marketing Department we have a record number of agents requesting any one of the number of self-promotional materials we’re offering. Aside from a few new offerings, there’s not a lot of change: the graphics production is still no charge to the agents and we can work within a “Carpenter” theme or build material solely around an agent’s own “brand.” But the concept of a need for powerful self-promotion is finally taking hold and more and more agents – experienced and the newbies – are turning to us for help in building their career and growing their income. I don’t mind that. They make more, I can make more.

Then there’s the attitude. The general mood around most of our offices is pretty upbeat. And it’s not the swell weather we’ve been having. In the past some offices, on good days, have been subdued at best. Others are always pretty upbeat offices but the four+ years of recession has taken a toll on our moods. These days you might say there’s a little spring in their step.

Tomorrow we officially kick off 2011. Indianapolis is going to have a good year.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Great Tools for your next open house

2011-01-25T15:14:57Z

At a Sales Meeting last week I was talking about our new GPS HomeSearch™ program and an Associate mentioned it would make a great conversation starter with visitors to an Open House. What a great idea! We built on that idea and suggested an agent might want to get a plexi-glass “take-one” stand at Office Mart to put copies of our new GPS HomeSearch flyer out on the kitchen counter as a reminder to the agent to talk about it…demonstrate it…and have the visitor leave with a copy of the personalized flyer to remind them how to access the GPS HomeSearch tool. We all agreed today’s Open House visitors would love to learn about a high-tech tool like that.

If you’re not familiar with our GPS HomeSearch program, simply go to Carpenter’s website at callcarpenter.com using your smartphone and click on the “Find Nearby Properties” button at the top of the page. By magic, your smartphone will show you all the homes for sale sorted by the nearest homes to you within a one mile radius. Carpenter is the only local real estate firm to offer this tool.

In addition, another great idea is to have personalized copies of our “6 Reasons Today May Be the Best Time in 40 Years to Buy a Home” report on display in your next Open House. This report outlines the 6 reasons your Open House visitor needs to become a homeowner TODAY! The report is available to Carpenter agents through our Intranet and contact management system, i-Contact, and can be fully customized to the agent’s identity. And like the GPS HomeSearch flyers, it can be displayed in one of those clear plexi-glass holders on the kitchen counter. Another great “value-added” conversation starter.

Posted by: David Caveness

Location, location, location…

2011-01-25T00:00:00Z

Carpenter Realtors is the first to bring location-aware home searches to smartphones. It’s pretty slick – If you’re standing in front of a house for sale and, for example, you want to see what else is for sale in the area, Carpenter Realtor’s callcarpenter.com mobile-aware website will allow you to see other homes for sale starting with the closest on down in a one mile radius. Nice.

The search depends on the GPS chip sitting in your smartphone – your iPhone, Android device, Blackberry, Windows phone, etc. The only caveat is that you have to have your GPS turned on and you have to allow our app to access your location.

If you’re like me, running a high-powered, large-screened, battery sucking hog of a smartphone, you leave non-essential services turned off to conserve battery. When I’m not at the office or at home I leave my wifi off for example and almost all of the time I leave my GPS off. So before performing a location-based search such as ours you must turn your GPS back on. OK, that’s pretty obvious. The next step isn’t so obvious and it does trip some folks up.

As a security measure you have to give applications permission to access your location. The reasons for this may or may not be obvious to you but think of an app that can follow you wherever you go and know exactly where you are at any given time without you knowing it is doing that. Not cool. So as a security measure, you have to give those apps requesting to know your location permission to do so. So if Google Maps or Foursquare want to access your GPS coordinates, you know they need those to work and probably aren’t doing so for any insidious purposes.

There are so many variations of smartphones these days and variations within them that I would have to write a Tolstoy-esque novel to cover them all. (Here is what Apple has to say about location services for the iPhone.) Basically you will either get a prompt telling you the app wants access to your location – tell it yes. On some phones, however, you may have to go into the phone’s settings and tell it to allow applications to access your location first. And, of course, have the GPS turned on when you do the search. I don’t mean to make this all sound complicated. Most people, including myself, haven’t had trouble and the search just worked. If you’re one of the unfortunate few, however, I didn’t want you left out of this cool and very useful new feature.

And then use the new search function at callcarpenter.com. It will tell where all the homes for sale are in the area you’re looking. No map drawing, no townships to look up, no coordinates to enter. Just, “Hey, what’s for sale around here?”. Slick.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

Successful Agents & Open Houses - Working Together?

2011-01-13T16:49:56Z

Interesting. Or is it intriguing? Is there a relationship between open houses and an agent’s sales/listing activity? Logic tells us yes. And, I think - so does our open house ad this week.

The logic is that if you hold open houses, you’re more likely to meet prospective home buyers and to have a seller who believes you’re working harder on their behalf. But everyone knows that logic has no place in real estate (don’t ask me to substantiate that). What about proving it with cold, hard, indisputable facts? No, I don’t have those, but I do have conjecture.

It’s the first of the year. And around the first of the year we add up last year’s numbers. Like who sold the most homes? Who had the most listings? Who had a good year despite the economy and despite claims that you can’t make a buck in real estate these days? Well … here I am looking over that list of top agents when I’m interrupted to proofread our Sunday open house ad. Funny, I’m recognizing a lot of faces!

In a typical open house ad, Carpenter has photo ads and text ads. This week we have about three dozen photo ads. And in those photo ads I see the faces of last year’s top agents. Fully 45% of our open house photo ads this week are being held by sales and listing leaders from 2010. Agents who are listing more homes - and closing more sales - are spending their Sunday afternoon holding open homes for sale. Meeting prospective clients. Working hard for their home sellers.

Now I’m no licensed, experienced real estate agent. If I was, logic would tell me to take every effort to ensure I have a satisfied seller on my hands. Logic says I should increase my sphere of contacts in order to increase my number of sellers and buyers. Now, conjecture tells me to emulate successful agents and hold open houses.

Danged if this puzzle isn’t putting itself together for me.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Carpenter Sales Rally

2011-01-13T00:00:00Z

The annual Carpenter Kick-off Sales Rally is being held on January 26th, 2011 at the Wyndham Indianapolis West. This is a great event that gives us the chance to honor the efforts of our agents from the previous year as well as getting us focused and energized on new initiatives for the year to come. As always, more than 20 of our local marketing and service partners are going to be exhibiting and supporting our Carpenter family.

In addition, we’re going to have an awesome lineup of guest speakers. This year two of the best are going to be taking the stage and both were recently named to Inman’s Top 100 Most Influential Leaders in Real Estate. First, we are thrilled to have Pam O’Connor, President and CEO of The Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™. Pam is a consummate professional with a great reputation, wonderful integrity and she’s an all around nice lady. You can follow her at @LeadingrePam on Twitter. It’s easy to equate our broker network with referrals, but Pam’s going to share some of the vision, partnership, and strategic solutions that Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™ brings to us beyond just referrals. Next, Steve Harney and his KCM Crew (follow @KCMCrew via Twitter or his blog, www.kcmblog.com) is going to be here to share his insights on how to leverage data to articulate the best approach for our agents to service their buyers and sellers. Steve had a successful career as an agent in New York and then built his own 500 + agent brokerage firm there. (If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!).

Sing it Frank!

If you’re a Carpenter agent, this is going to be an awesome event you just don’t want to miss.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Relocation Training – 2011 and Beyond

2011-01-06T14:38:36Z

I had the pleasure of collaborating with Nancy Harmann, the Relocation Director at Latter & Blum in New Orleans, LA on an article that was just published in January edition of Mobility magazine. Mobility is the premier relocation publication produced by the Worldwide Employee Relocation Council – the international NAR of relocation if you will. Nancy is consummate professional with over 20 years of relocation experience and an impeccable reputation in the industry, so it was a real honor to work with her. Our article focuses on relocation training today and in the future. You can read it here – Relocation Training 2011 and Beyond. A great deal of the subject matter within relocation hasn’t changed – pricing is critical, accurate information is essential, market analysis and the 11 step amended value process are all still there. However, Nancy and I talked mainly about how that information is delivered. Let’s face, today we want…we expect to be entertained. Life is coming at us fast and the number of stimuli competing for our attention has never been higher. If you have a minute, give the article a glance and share your thoughts. Thanks.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Embracing the new (and free) real estate technologies in 2011

2010-12-30T00:00:00Z

Looking forward to the new year, are you? Sure, everyone’s looking forward to 2011. No matter if it’s jobs, politics, the economy or the real estate business, we all have our own reasons to look forward to the new year.

Professionally for me, I’m looking forward to the year of adoption. Or rather – the implementation and embracing of the tech opportunities Carpenter Realtors® offers its agents.

In 2010, we introduced a completely new custom-designed website with more bells and whistles than anyone else can offer. With that website came customizable agent web sites at no charge. Not just a web page that they can change some wording on, but a custom site to which they can add as much individual and local content they want. Plus, we offer a very robust Client Relationship (CRM) program that rivals the offerings from SharperAgent, Top Producer and others. Again - $0.

No matter who you are, or how tech-savvy you are, this is a lot to learn and absorb in nine months. That’s why 2011 is the year of adoption/implementation/embracement (real word!).

My goal: To make all our agents (and the public for that matter) more aware that callcarpenter.com now has more tools and more detailed statistics on homes for sale, neighborhoods, cities, schools, local economies and more. The site can even automatically recognize a smartphone to display the mobile site and now has a GPS location search to ID properties near your current location! I’ve always said that home buyers are information junkies. This new site gives them more tools and more stats – a better, quicker “fix,” you could say.

My goal: To continue to show our agents how their individual websites can be customized to create more value to them and their careers. While technically these are Carpenter sites, they can be customized to have a totally personal look that matches the agent’s personal “brand.” An agent can also create custom content that better serves the neighborhoods and groups they’re targeting. (here’s an example) See what I mean that it doesn’t “look” like a Carpenter web page? This is a huge, valuable tool. Not only do other brokers not offer this option, but the agents who want this are paying hundreds of dollars a month out-of-pocket for the same product we’re offering our agents for free.

My goal: To show our agents how easy and valuable the Carpenter CRM program is. We call it iContact and it can be used as a one-stop location for list management, scheduling and emails. Even more valuable are the many action plans available. From automated emails (monthly, quarterly, etc.) to action reminders to direct links to any resource, iContact is the Swiss army knife of CRM programs. And yes – we have agents cancelling their subscriptions to other CRM programs, again saving hundreds of dollars. And again – our iContact is a no-charge to Carpenter agents. It’s like a MasterCard commercial. No cost, but it’s priceless.

Add to these the Microsoft Tag, mobile tagging program we adopted and our PinPoint Perks affiliation and you have a lot to absorb, implement, embrace.

My goal: To make this happen early in 2011, and painlessly, so our agents see the results a quickly as possible.

Don’t look for me in the office over the next few months. I’ll be out working to build careers. Sure hope gas doesn’t get too expensive.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Find the Homes for Sale Nearest You With Our GPS Locator App

2010-12-17T00:00:00Z

I gotta get me a smarter phone.

This morning at our corporate managers’ meeting, I mentioned a new feature on the mobile app for callcarpenter.com (http://www.callcarpenter.mobi/). It’s a gps location search option. Using a smartphone, you can now search homes for sale and callcarpenter will identify your location and show you only the houses that meet your criteria within two miles of where you are right then. Yeah, I could park myself in the middle of an area where I think I want to live and my phone will only show me houses for sale in that specific area. If I drive to another neighborhood, the search results change to match my move.

So what happened this morning? It was an invitation to break the rules and pull out your phone. 60+ phones popped up and started searching for homes near our meeting site. 60+ phone users ooh’d and aah’d when they saw this new feature in action. OK, not everybody ooh’d and aah’d. Some just ooh’d. Some just aah’d. Some were silently awed.

Why the awe? We’re the first real estate web site in Indiana to offer this gps locator. Imagine being at an open house, being interested in the area and wondering what other homes are for sale around that home? What if you’re considering moving up from your present home, but want to stay in the same area? How about if you’re visiting a friend and, just for kicks, want to see what homes in their neighborhood are for sale?

So, if you’re phone is smarter than mine, try it. callcarpenter.com will automatically redirect you to our mobile web app. At the top you’ll click on “Search Nearby Properties” and the gps locator starts to do its job. Or, click here for more information.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Indy Star Home of the Day ad: Value + Value

2010-12-10T10:41:27Z

Got home last night and did my usual perusal of the Indy Star, checking to see what headlines catch my eye, worthy of a read. Not long after starting, right above a half-page Roberts Camera ad on main news, page A12, I see Kevin Smoot’s smiling face. Kevin’s an agent in Carpenter’s Avon West office and no – the smiling face isn’t part of a Star investigative report. It’s Kevin’s Home of the Day ad for an Avon home for sale he’s listed.

Whaaaaa? A realtor running a home-for-sale display ad in the main news of the full-circulation Indianapolis Star? Who can afford that? Nothing personal, Kevin, but I know you can’t. But with Carpenter’s help, you can.

Our agreement with the Indianapolis Star gives us an exclusive Home of the Day feature display ad in one of the main sections of the daily paper. This is no classified or hidden ad. It’s in the main news, sports, business, etc. And we “sublet” that space to any interested Carpenter agent for only $50. Don’t get me wrong, we pay a lot for each ad. If you know the newspaper business, you know that a display ad in a major daily paper can cost hundreds (and hundreds) of dollars. But we’ve found a value in co-oping the cost of each day’s ad to enable our agents to get a real competitive advantage over other brokers’ agents.

Good luck to all you non-Carpenter agents out there. You ain’t getting this ad for $50 no-where, no-how. I’m sure some of you are saying “Who cares? I don’t want the ad anyway.” HA! Tell that to our agents who run the ads and make the phone ring.

Bill Foxworthy – can I use your example? Here’s what Bill said when one of his recent listings ran as a Home of the Day: ”After the Home of the Day ad I got at least 12 phone calls about the home on my cell number. The showings increased. The virtual tours increased. The timing for the sellers was great because the activity had slowed down. The ad was beautifully done (and) the sellers ok’d a price reduction because of the increased activity. (This) Home of the Day had a tremendous impact.”

Indy Star display ad (Wow!)
Exclusive to Carpenter agents (nyaa nyaa nyaa)
$50 (Holy Cow!)

Beat that, Mr. Rent-a-Desk.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Trends in Corporate Relocation Policy

2010-12-01T14:31:36Z

These are interesting times…or as Charles Evans, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said in October, “current circumstances are really extraordinary.” Fortune 500 companies do not make changes to their benefits and compensation structure without multiple layers of input from operations to accounting to human resources to talent management. I’ve recently attended several industry meetings where relocation management companies or the in-house managers of corporate relocation programs are doing just that.

In many parts of the country, transferring families are finding it nearly impossible to accept relocations due to the decline in the value of their current home. I recently posted a story about the huge declines in new hire transfer volume – you can read that here. For existing homeowner transferees, major corporations are again offering loss on sale protection – making the homeowner whole on the difference between the price they purchased their home for and the price they are able to secure through the buyout or relocation process. Often this “loss on sale” protection is capped at $20 or $30,000 and is simply not enough. Thus corporations are now offering transferees the alternative of property management. As an example, one corporation is offering two years of property management expense reimbursement up to $10,000. The hope is that in that two year period the market will recover, prices will appreciate and the transferee will be able to proceed with the sale of their home. The challenge now is finding qualified partners to provide full property management services.

In addition to property management, another trend in corporate relocation policy is to maintain an employee’s homeowner status for their tenure with the company even if they elect to rent in the short term. The difference in benefit packages provided to current homeowner transferees versus current renters is significant. The Worldwide Employee Relocation Council survey of relocation expense for 2009 showed the average cost to move a homeowner employee was $90,000 while the average for a renter was less than $21,000. The problem – many corporations have been incentivizing their employee to purchase in their new location, even when it’s in neither of their best interest. The employee doesn’t want to lose their future homeowner relocation benefits. To alleviate this problem a number of corporations are now adopting the “Once a homeowner, always homeowner” position. This shift in policy is dramatically increasing the need for rental assistance and the level of service expected by those transferees. Many relocation departments across the country are already equipped to provide these services, it’s just that the demand hasn’t always been there.

Property management and rental assistance are just two examples of recent trends in changing relocation policy – emerging innovative solutions for relatively consistent industry. These changes will provide some much needed relief, stress and financial, to transferring families. The questions though, do these changes have unforeseen consequences…if the market doesn’t recover when the property management runs out in two years, then what? Is the transferring family’s stress and financial hardship just amplified? Will this shift in corporate strategy just add to an already ominous amount of shadow inventory? And “Once a homeowner, always a homeowner”. It makes sense to remove the incentive for employees to make bad purchases, but how many qualified buyers are being removed from the current market? If you live in a high transferee area, does the policy simply add to your financial stress and days on market?

Interesting times…or should I say “really extraordinary”. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Microsoft's TAG - it's relevant to home buyers and sellers

2010-11-23T17:50:28Z

I just finished a conference with a “new media” guy from Evansville. His company advises clients on the use of social media and new technologies to reach out and talk to their customers/clients. Why did he ask for the meeting? He’d seen Carpenter featured in Microsoft®‘s Gettag mobile barcode program. Being Microsoft’s first real estate partner in the eastern U.S., we have a lot of Tag knowledge, since we’ve been using it for nearly a year now. “New media” guy was ready to learn more and offer this as an option to many of his clients.

We’re using the mobile barcode (we call it TAG IT!) to help home buyers and sellers connect with each other. The tags instantly link a smartphone user to detailed information about homes for sale, to our real estate agents’ v-cards and websites and to Carpenter web pages. As a result, it’s a perfect way for us to get information into the hands/phones of those buyers and sellers. We use it on yard signs, on property flyers, our newspaper and magazine advertising, our weekly TV show and even on agent business cards.

This fact-finding mission helped me better understand the value of TAG IT! Here’s someone whose business specializes in social networking and new media, and here he is explaining that he saw the Carpenter name on Microsoft’s Get Tag web site and wanted to pick our brains. Now, these brains are pretty picked over, but they warm up when complimented like that.

With TAG-IT!, our goal is simple. Use the latest technology to give agents the latest tools and to offer buyers and sellers more opportunities to match up.

Is it working? For a new technology in beta testing that has limited mass awareness, we’re pretty pleased. A typical Indy Star Home of the Day ad will get a half-dozen click-thrus to the home’s detail page. On a normal Sunday, we’ll see a couple dozen newspaper readers click on the tag to download Open Houses and map their open house tour. For an emerging technology that’s still unknown to a big percentage of consumers, those are darn good numbers.

Thanks to my new “new media” friend for reminding me that adopting new technology – when relevant to your business model, providing relevant information to customers – does have a positive payback.

Posted by: Jim Newell

New Hire Relocation Volume Hits New Low

2010-11-22T00:00:00Z

Economic times are tough and the relocation industry is anything but immune. Challenger, Gray and Christmas, an employment services company, produces a quarterly report that tracks the percentage of job seekers that are relocating for employment. The third quarter of 2010 entry was just 6.9%, the lowest since they started producing the report in 1986. To lend some perspective, this same index showed an average of nearly 42% in calendar year 1986 and was over 20% within the last decade. Unfortunately, the third quarter just caps a decade long decline in the index and an average for the last four quarters of 7.3%. You can view some commentary regarding the history and current state of the index by clicking here.

There are a number of positive reason this trend in the decline of new hire relocations has continued including technology advances, increases in efficiency and soci-economic changes within the US workforce. However, the negatives circumstance of potential employees who fear they cannot replace a trailing spouse’s income or those that are simply too far upside to afford to sell their current home are certainly prevalent. For the non-relocation industry professional, this is a glass half-full scenario. Lack of willingness or ability for new hires to relocate means increased local employment opportunities as the recovery continues. But as Challenger CEO, John Challenger points out in his post “the job market is expected to continue to improve in 2011. If it improves faster than the housing market, the inability of job seekers to relocate will become a major obstacle to sustained job creation.”

Frankly, after being in the relocation industry for nearly 20 years (Oh my…where did the time go?) I was surprised by the length and magnitude of the decline in this index. If you have any thoughts on the topic I’d love to hear them…

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Realtor luncheon benefits Children's hospital

2010-11-17T16:12:00Z

Just last Thursday, for the 25th consecutive year, Carpenter’s Northeast office (formerly “Castleton”) held a Thanksgiving luncheon and raffle to raise money for the Larue D. Carter Children’s Hospital.

Clint Williams (office manager, ret.) gets credit for starting this tradition. At Larue Carter, they care for 42 underprivileged children with mental disabilities. Only 42? With only 159 beds, the hospital has a cap on beds and its ability to treat children. The hospital is described as an intensive specialized treatment, training, and research center for the State of Indiana Division of Mental Health system. A lot of words for a simple goal – to make people better.

The challenge is that these 42 children have little or no Christmas to look forward to. The office’s goal is to give them something to brighten the holiday. And a brighter holiday we think they’ll see. The luncheon is an office pitch-in where they invite co-workers, family, friends and vendors to join them. Those co-workers, family, friends and vendors are also invited to bring their checkbooks. Checkbooks that are slightly depleted after the lunch. This year, the checkbooks were depleted to the tune of nearly $1,500! Fifteen hundred dollars. Fifteen hundred bucks. Fifteen hundred greenbacks. Fifteen hundred clams. Fifteen hundred mazumas. Fifteen hundred smackeroos. That’s money that will go toward making this Christmas a brighter one for the 42 children at the hospital.

Lunch? Some incredible home-made Thanksgiving items. Raffle prizes? Treasury Liquors, of Crested Butte, Colorado donated a number of very (verrrrrrrry) nice gifts as raffle items while office members created several beautiful additional holiday-themed prizes.

It’s great to see that an office with ever-changing personalities (over 25 years) can continue to come together and make such a huge difference for children who have so little. On behalf of those children, thank you to everyone on our Northeast office.

Posted by: Jim Newell

It’s 3 a.m. Do you know where your data is?

2010-11-09T14:31:51Z

The fire damage to our West office put an exclamation point on my recent concerns with data backup. In my fifteen plus years at Carpenter Realtors I’ve seen many a hard drive bite the dust. I’ve seen the fallout from stolen or misplaced computers and, now, I’ve seen the aftermath of computers that have gone up in smoke – literally. Whether you just have irreplaceable family photos, your tax files, years of business contacts or other important data on your laptop or desktop, ask yourself this question: what would I do if it was suddenly gone? How much would I be willing to pay to get it all back?

The real heartbreaker is knowing how important the files on your computer can be and how easy it is to safeguard that data. An external USB hard drive can be had for less than $50 (Here’s one from Amazon.com). I’ve seen the look of utter dismay on people’s faces when they realize all their files are gone and there’s no way to get them back. I’ve seen it and I can guarantee you that if I’d offered to give them their data back at a cost of $500 most would have jumped at my offer. For one-tenth that price you can be on your first step toward securing your data.

Buy a cheap removable USB drive – they sell them at Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, etc. and then – wait for it – use it. It’s not rocket science. They usually come with some kind of backup software. Install it and set up an automatic schedule. Backup regularly; weekly or monthly at least.

That will protect your computer from a failure of your primary hard drive – usually the culprit in data loss. Your computer’s hard drive is the only truly moving part in a computer (not counting the cooling fans) and has a limited lifetime. It will die sooner or later and it has all your files on it – everything.

That would be a good first step but there’s one more you should take. If your computer is stolen, or fire or a tornado or some other disaster strikes you could lose your backup as well if you’re like most people and leave it attached to your computer. The smart thing to do would be to back your computer up and then keep the backup drive somewhere else. But I know the drive would just get put into a drawer somewhere and then when your data does slip loose the mortal coil then your backup will be circa 1983 and will be of limited value.

Instead, I recommend a two-pronged approach: a backup drive and an online backup service such as Carbonite backup. The odds are absolutely astronomical that: a. your hard drive will crash while b. your backup hard drive has also been lost while c. Carbonite’s servers have also managed to lose your data. Carbonite costs $55 a year for unlimited backups. So you’ll spend $50 or so on a removable hard drive and $55 on a backup service like Carbonite. Carbonite has lost data in the past, so while I do think they’re reliable I still recommend having your own backup even if you use their service. Having two points of failure (on top of your hard drive as another point of failure) makes it pretty fool-proof that you won’t lose any data no matter the circumstance.

Is your data worth $110 to you? Look at the contents of your hard drive – your photos, emails, documents – and answer that question now while you still have it in front of you. Back it up!

Posted by: George Christodoulou

In Indiana, Small Towns = Safe Towns

2010-11-09T00:00:00Z

Do you ever wake up in the morning and cringe when the local TV news team reports another shooting, break-in or crazy robbery? Almost every day, right? But if you look deeper into it, central Indiana is actually a very safe place to live, with crime rates well below the national average.

The fact that these stories are considered news is proof that they’re uncommon, right? Well, that‘s what we call a theory.

Looking to prove the theory as true, we go to neighborhoodscout.com. They call themselves a “web-based patented neighborhood search engine that uses neighborhood statistics to build neighborhood profiles.” Those numbers are used to create an index that outlines, among other stats, the safest cities and towns in Indiana and America.

Where do we Hoosiers stand? Pretty well, as a matter of fact (not theory). Typically, suburbs and small towns have the lowest crime rates – one case where your stereotype meets the truth. And we have plenty of those small towns. While heavily-urban downtown Indianapolis gets a fairly low score, Fishers is one of the safest towns in Indiana. Look at this list of towns near Carpenter offices that score at, or well above the national average for safety (in truly random order):

Pittsboro, Danville, Clayton, Coatesville, Greenfield, Fairland, New Palestine, Carmel, Zionsville, Clermont, Brownsburg, Avon, Whiteland, Southport, Bargersville, Trafalgar, Sheridan, Atlanta, Cicero, Nineveh, Springville, Roachdale, Reelsville, Pendleton, Cumberland, Frankton, Wilkinson, Morristown.

It’s like a small-town Who’s Who, isn’t it? Needless, to say, when Carpenter has a home for sale in any of our central Indiana towns, we have great stories to tell. Reasonable prices, low crime, family-friendly, etc. For more information detailing crime rates by city, take a look at this chart.

Posted by: Jim Newell

We were lucky

2010-11-04T12:23:00Z

At 2:18AM last Wednesday morning (October 27th) I received a phone call, actually my wife Anne answered the call. It was Vicki Kenworthy, managing broker of our West Suburban Office. She was calling to tell me our West Office was on fire. Anne felt lucky it wasn’t one of our daughters. You know what I mean, if you have kids or grandkids living somewhere other than down the hall. I got dressed and was on the scene by 3:15AM. In route I called Tom Prall our Company President. When I arrived, Vicki was already there. MaDonna Meadows had already met and decided the best place to temporarily relocate the office would be to our Avon-East Office. Dave Danz, our Avon East Manager was called at 3:30AM. He got on it immediately. He arrived on the scene by 4:15am to see what he could do to help. George Christodoulou, our IT Manager was called by 4:00AM. He had the West Office phones rerouted to Avon East by 8:30AM. By mid-morning, the West Office agents were notified about the fire and that that we were relocating to Avon-East. By days-end, agents had been assigned a place to land at Avon-East. As soon as the ashes had cooled and the fire investigators would allow, the Carpenter team was in the burnt-out building salvaging all of the currently active and pending files and hard-drives from the computers that survived. Within 48 hours files, computers, phones, desks, chairs, etc were in place for the West Office team at Avon. Luckily, we were back in business.

It was amazing. Nobody had to tell anybody what needed to be done or how to get it done. They just did what needed to get done and did it now! Somebody’s son had a trailer. Another manager had extra desks and chairs in their office. Agents and managers had strong backs to load and unload stuff. Another manager had extra telephones. Somebody else had a computer they could spare. Somebody thought to order yard-signs.

Everyone realized we were all very lucky. We were lucky no one was in the building when the fire started. We were lucky no one was injured. We were lucky the alarm system worked on the building and luckily the IMPD Officer responded to the alarm run in 180 seconds! We were lucky the Indianapolis Fire Department responded in less than 7 minutes. We were lucky the fire took place at 2:00AM rather than 2:00PM. It gave us a 6 hour head start on what ended up being a very long day. You know, you can get a lot done from 2:00AM ‘til 8:00AM. We were lucky Vicki and MaDonna took charge at 2:18AM. We were lucky Dave Danz and his team at Avon-East were/are so welcoming and supportive. We were lucky George got the phone company to respond so quickly in the middle of the night. We were lucky everyone wanted to help any way they could…and did. One week later, we are still getting lucky. The West Office turned a new listing and a sale in on today’s Daily Activity Summary report.

How lucky can you be.

Posted by: David Caveness

Tour of Affordable Homes works for us!

2010-10-28T16:33:00Z

We were very pleased with the results of the Indianapolis Star’s Tour of Affordable Homes this past Sunday. A special expanded edition of their Sunday Homefinder section offered details on nearly 300 Indianapolis-area homes for sale under $175,000. On top of that, there were several related articles – from Help in Finding an Affordable Home to the Indianapolis Community Housing Development Authority to Life After the Tax Credit.

Why did we like it?

First – since Carpenter’s average home sale price matches the area’s average, we have a much greater share of that under-$175k market. Our agents dominated the listings within the special affordable homes section. Of course our company got some nice exposure from it, but more importantly our home sellers had another chance to have their home noticed and considered by potential buyers.

Second – The Star did a great job of driving eyeballs to the section. Our 200+ open houses received a nice bump in exposure. No, they weren’t necessarily home buyers in the market now, but this type of editorial might push more of them into the market, and our open houses saw some additional traffic because of it. To quote a great film: “This is the kind of spontaneous publicity - your name in print - that makes people!” (Hint: “He hates these cans!”)

I digress. Finally – As the market continues to struggle, anything the media and we in the business can do to communicate the value of buying a home right now has got to help. Interest rates – historically low. Home prices – very affordable. Inventory – plenty to choose from. Sellers – motivated. Somewhat of a perfect storm … that more people should be taking advantage of.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Robos-Signing scandal affects mortgage foreclosures. Read the FAQs

2010-10-18T00:00:00Z

It’s estimated that there will be a record 1.2 million foreclosures this year. In 2005, there were around 100,000. As a result, mortgage lenders have found themselves severely unprepared, or understaffed, for that huge increase in volume. How much do REALTORS®, and homebuyers, know about the robo-signing scandal and how it could affect each of us personally?

Carpenter Realtors® has had a chance to research the latest information and news reports and talk to a number of professionals about the crisis. As a result, we’ve compiled this list of frequently-asked questions about the current foreclosure news. There’s no quiz later, but REALTORS® and homeowners alike should be aware of what’s happening, what to expect, how it might affect us and how long it might last.

Posted by: David Caveness

Buy a home now or rent? What's the right call for you?

2010-10-12T16:09:02Z

Let’s see. Home prices are down from their peak a few years ago. Interest rates are incredibly low. Many, many sellers are very, very motivated. Why in the world would someone rent a home or apartment instead of buying a home? Well, heck. If you don’t want to take advantage of just about the most reliable investment you can make; or if you don’t want greater tax advantages; or if you don’t want privacy or to make your own decisions about your property; or if you simply don’t want “your own place,” then it makes perfect sense. (My word of the day: facetious.)

Not long ago, Trulia published the results of a study that details the cities in which it makes sense to rent instead of buy compared to the cities where it makes more sense to buy, not rent. Not surprisingly, Indianapolis – always one of the most affordable places in the country for home buyers – was on the list of places to buy, not rent. The value of buying a home in Indianapolis came in at #27 on the list, being described as being just a tick under “It is much less expensive to own than to rent a home in this city.” The only reason Indy didn’t fare better is that rents continue to be a tad more affordable than other cities on the list. But the low home prices here make up most of that difference.

There are a ton of calculators that help a typical person understand whether their particular situation is a “rent” or a “buy.” Try this. Or this. How about this. If these advise you to buy a home and you’re still on the fence, think about timing. This may be about the best time to buy a home – anywhere – in decades. Carpenter’s agents will soon be armed with The Six Reasons that TODAY may be the BEST TIME in 40 years to BUY a HOME. It’s a great opportunity to ask one about those reasons.

Rent or buy, it’s your call. But if buying a home is on the agenda you’d be smart to get cranking on the process. Define your budget. Start your search. Get pre-qualified. It’s time to get off the fence … unless the fence is in front of your own home.

Posted by: Jim Newell

The Value of Real Estate Advertising

2010-10-08T15:11:00Z

I’ve read some discussions lately about the value of real estate advertising. Some downplay the value of a Realtor®, exposing your home for sale to every possible buyer. They say this type of advertising is only about creating exposure for the agent, or simply wasted. I beg to disagree. Here’s why:

Open Houses. The argument is that the stream of potential homebuyers viewing your home aren’t necessarily going to purchase your home. As a homeowner, are you willing to take that chance? Using similar logic, we could argue that showings are unnecessary – that those visitors aren’t necessarily going to purchase your home. But we find great value in showings. Even the neighbors – just wanting to see how their neighbors decorate and care for their home – have friends and family to whom they might recommend your home. Give up open houses and you give up opportunity. Hey naysayers, explain this away - the Open House section is proven to be one of the most-read sections of any Sunday paper, including the Indianapolis Star. Who are those readers? Mostly people in the market to buy a home. Nicely targeted ad, eh?

Newspaper ads: The arguments talk about research showing that few people buy a house after seeing a newspaper ad. No argument there. But research doesn’t show that any one thing is the primary way people find their new home. Research also shows that homebuyers don’t discriminate – they are looking everywhere to find their new home. Isn’t this more about the effort and hard work it takes for a Realtor® to expose that home for sale to as many potential home buyers as possible?

And that’s about the extent of any arguments against the value of actually advertising a home for sale. Is that all you have, you lazy pansies? Seems to me that the argument is more about how those Realtors® aren’t willing to make the effort; that they’re looking for excuses not to take the extra steps and simply work harder to sell a home they’ve listed. I personally experienced this once. My hard-working real estate agent never advertised my home … never held an open house … never called me regularly with any updates. Just listed my home and moved on to the next target (sucker?), assuming the MLS and the sign would sell my house. And it took forever.

Real estate advertising is useless? The argument of a lazy real estate agent. Select your Realtor® based on the fact that they’ll work harder to sell your home, that they’ll expose it to every potential buyer and that they’ll communicate regularly with news and updates.

Posted by: Jim Newell

More Open Houses = More Homes Sold?

2010-10-01T16:05:00Z

I surprised myself this morning. I thought I’d look at the number of open houses that Carpenter Realtors’ agent are holding so far this Fall, thinking that the last few weeks’ numbers had been holding up pretty well despite the seasonality. So I compared numbers for past Septembers.

Lo and behold, our open house counts are holding up very well against previous years, especially considering how the market’s been acting. Just this week, our total is up more than 50% from the same week last year. Our ads in the Indianapolis Star are consistently larger than previous years’, with more open houses and more agents selecting the prominent photo ads for their open house.

Asking a few agents’ opinions on this, I’ve found that many are still actively looking at a rebound in home sales and want to be upfront. Their open houses give them a chance to connect with their sellers’ neighbors and meet a number of fairly active buyers, both in a non-threatening “sales pitch” way. Plus the home sellers know that their Carpenter agent is putting some effort into selling their home in a tough market. We still hear stories from sellers whose previous agents rarely contacted them, failed to offer market activity updates, didn’t advertise and simply didn’t “work” for their business.

So yes – it’s nice to consistently have more open houses for sale than anyone, have a larger presence in the Sunday Star (300,000 copies, a half-million readers!) and have all our open houses syndicated to more online sites. It’s great to have agents who are re-engaging with the market now - when it’s showing signs of a rebound. It just bodes well for them being the first to see a rebound and the most successful coming out of the downturn.

Yeah, I’m gonna have a good weekend.

By the way, I used the term Lo and Behold and got curious where it came from. Thanks to phrases.org.uk, I found that its meaning is that it’s ”an exclamation, drawing others’ attention to something. Used especially to announce things that are considered startling or important.” The word ‘lo’ as used in this phrase is a shortening of ‘look’. So, lo and behold! has the meaning of look! - behold!. So there … phrase used correctly and now you know its meaning!

Posted by: Jim Newell

Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™ Fall Workshops

2010-09-29T11:14:00Z

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™ Fall Workshops in Chicago. The Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™ is the international network of real estate companies that Carpenter belongs to. LeadingRE, as many of us call it, is made of up of the best of the best with 600 real estate companies across the U.S. and in 30 countries. Only companies with strong leadership, exceptional marketing, and significant market share are approved for membership. The Fall Workshops, held in four locations throughout the country, provided a number of educational breakout sessions on relocation, real estate, and marketing. In addition, it was a great opportunity to meet others within the network and reconnect with colleagues. Great companies from Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Connecticut, New York, Florida, and Arizona were all represented in Chicago. I had the honor of speaking on a panel with Debbie Horton from McColly Real Estate in Northwest Indiana and Catharine Pappas of Dickens-Mitchner in Charlotte NC. Our topic was about time management, organization (don’t look at the pile on the corner of my desk!), and productivity. The presentation and discussions were great – Catharine is not only a consummate professional, but also a super mom with 3 children and a gourmet cake business to boot!

The network also announced the introduction of some great new products and platforms that will rollout through the end of the year. From what I have seen thus far, these are going to position us at the forefront of technology and education. I am personally excited about the possibilities these new initiatives are going to offer and I can’t wait to implement many within Carpenter. I’ll be writing about and covering these in more detail on our blog as we move forward.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Keep Your Facebooking Amongst Your Friends

2010-09-24T14:33:00Z

Facebook is quite a phenomenon. A recent Wired Magazine article noted that the Internet is dead and in its place are now portals like Facebook, Youtube and Hulu. Forbes just came out with its list of wealthiest Americans and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has jumped ahead of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Keep in mind that Apple sold over 16 million iPhones in the first half of this year alone and has by far the fattest profit margins of any of the major smart phone manufacturers. Facebook is a web portal that sells advertising through its web presence. And its founders are worth more than Apple’s.

So, yes, Facebook is huge. And far-reaching. I lived in Athens, Greece for four years in high school over twenty years ago and made many friends there. When I returned to the States I never heard from most of those friends again – until Facebook made it so easy to look up old acquaintances, schoolmates and even long lost relatives. It seems like everyone is on Facebook: my mother is on Facebook.

And therein lies the rub. Most folks wouldn’t think of opening a web page with a title along the lines of www.thethingsIsaywillgetmefired.com or www.pleaselookatthesemortifyingphotosofmedrunk.com (and if those are real websites, please don’t click on them!) but they will post photos, or get tagged in photos that are harmless when viewed in context. Hey, everyone has a life, or tries to, that doesn’t involve work – but maybe mom or your boss doesn’t need to see those photos of you bonging a six-pack upside down in Cabo Del Fuego.

The other thing I worry about when I see private information posted on Facebook is how easy we’re making it for criminals to use this information posted in such a public forum for ill-begotten deeds. Birthday, city you were born in, spouse’s name, family members (ergo, maiden names), pets, children. Does that list sound familiar? It should if you’ve ever filled out the security questions that are used to reset your password for anything from your Yahoo email account to sometimes even your banking information. And many, many people post this information with no privacy turned on.

I don’t know how many times I’ve had friend requests, or clicked on friends of friends and seen the usual “this person only shares information with people they know” and then clicked on the Photos tab and all their photos were visible or clicked on the Information tab and I could see what city they live in, their spouse’s name, sometimes even their birthday. And then I sigh.

Don’t get scared out of using Facebook. Just start using it smarter. While you’re on your Facebook page, click on Account and then Privacy Settings. From there you can completely customize your settings. Who can view your information, who can see your photos and wall posts, even who can see your friends list. You can choose whether you want your profile to show up in Google searches or Facebook searches. If you just want a Facebook page so you can see the photos your kids post of your grandkids and would rather not have anyone be able to search for you, you can do that.

The next thing you need to do is create friends lists. Segregate your “friends” into appropriate groups. If you have business contacts, past clients, etc. put them into a “work” group and then only expose your content to them that is appropriate – photos, wall posts, etc. that you wouldn’t mind them seeing. Make a group for actual friends and relatives – so you can post photos of your children and vacations or let your cousins and close friends be reminded of you birthday and anniversary, etc., without exposing your crazy cousin Louie’s thoughts on politics, money or foul language to your professional sphere. You can control all of that with Facebook’s privacy settings.

Once you’ve tweaked the settings and think you have it locked down, try the settings out. Facebook let’s you “preview” what your page looks like to anyone on your friends list (Account – Privacy Settings, click Customize and then click Preview My Profile). So you can pick one of your business acquaintances and look at your page as he or she would see it. Does it all look appropriate? If not, make the changes that need to be made.

Facebook is a great networking tool and clearly a great way to get information out. Just make sure you control the flow of that information and think about what you are putting out there and who will see it.

Here are a couple links with some more good ideas on Facebook privacy:

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
10 Solid Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy

Posted by: George Christodoulou

Broad Ripple Historic Home Tour

2010-09-23T16:57:00Z

I, for one, am looking forward to this Saturday’s Broad Ripple Historic Home Tour. Although I only “officially” lived in Broad Ripple for about a year (plus the occasional night), there are some very sweet homes in the area. And … for only ten bucks I can finally get past their front doors!

Running from 10 am until 6 pm this Saturday the 25th, this year’s tour is the sixth annual and is featuring ten very distinctive, historically unique homes. The homes are between 70 and 120 years old, and each has a very unique, fascinating story to tell. From my experience, that’s the reason to go. See, this isn’t just about enjoying the architecture and stealing the latest in remodeling ideas – it’s about each home’s individual story. This is kind of like a brush with greatness thing. Whether it’s a ghost story, a heartwarming tale from former owners, or that George Washington slept there, each is its own, and that why I’m going. I still want to find a previous owner of a 1920’s house I owned for several years. On the wall inside the door to the attic were scrawled the words, “A victim of fire”. A joke? Maybe. I choose to believe there’s a great story there. Plus, it was across the street from where John Hiatt grew up. See? One house, two stories!

Which Broad Ripple homes are on the tour this year?

6511 Riverview Drive6060 Park Avenue6007 Broadway Street5946 Guilford Avenue6130 Guilford Avenue6112 Haverford Avenue6026 Haverford Avenue6017 Indianola Avenue1315 Kessler Boulevard East Drive5957 Norwaldo Avenue

Go. Do it. It’s better than doing nothing. And by Saturday evening you’ll have a bunch of stories to tell.

What’s Broad Ripple, you ask? Broad Ripple (or Broad Ripple Village, as the locals call it) is the eclectic/Bohemian side of Indianapolis, along with some other very distinctive neighborhoods like Fountain Square. It’s one of only six Indy areas designated as an Indianapolis Cultural District. Here’s the sales pitch: If you’d like to get in on the act and own one of these incredible unique homes and learn to tell its story, see what’s for sale now.

Posted by: Jim Newell

The "New Reality" of Indianapolis Home Sales

2010-09-20T20:50:00Z

I saw an interesting presentation on the state of the Indianapolis real estate market the other day. Leaving there, I’m reminded of a Chrysler exec who, talking about U.S. carmakers, stated, “This is the new reality” (since used in dozens of other situations). In this case, he meant that you can’t compare last year, two years ago or ten years ago to today. Today is today. And our work today can only affect what happens to us today and tomorrow.

Very simply, the presentation showed that the local market of home sales is actually rebounding pretty nicely from “the bottom” in June and July. Of course, the news reports will probably highlight a comparison to 2009 - the fact that 25%-30% fewer homes were sold than last year. But the new reality tells us that home sales are actually up 18%-20% from June’s low.

What about home prices? Haven’t home prices been falling for several years? Not lately. In metro Indianapolis, the average selling price did decrease for 22 consecutive months. Our new reality is that prices on Indianapolis homes for sale have now increased for 11 straight months. Carpenter Realtors’ agents are actually seeing sales and average sale price increases that are better than the market’s.

But the “reality” is that few real estate agents are going to sell as many homes as they did in 2000, 2003 or 2006. The ones who will succeed understand the new reality. They’re working harder for their sellers and using the marketing tools their broker provides them to expose their homes for sale to as many potential buyers as possible.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Where do we look for homes for sale?

2010-09-10T16:24:22Z

Anyone care to guess where a home buyer looks for homes for sale?

You in the back – the internet? You bet … at home, at the office and on your phone. Anyone else? You think newspapers? You think right. Raise your hand if you think magazines are a place to look for homes. Ok, we got a few takers on magazines. Does anyone blindly drive around the neighborhoods and hope to find flyers? Of course they do.

This is one case where, no matter what the options, the correct answer is going to be “All of the above.” Home buyers are like a starving man in a buffet line. They cannot get enough. Any place that might – just might – have a newly listed home for sale, or more information on one they’ve already seen is a place they’ll look. One more outlet might have that diamond in the rough they’re waiting for. Am I right?

That’s the simple beauty of Carpenter Realtors® Home Marketing System. Nothing’s missed. Our real estate agents have all the tools to expose a home for sale to more potential buyers than anyone else can. And much is at the company’s expense.

· 100% syndication on the internet, to every real estate search site nationally.
· A hugely improved real estate website, with more neighborhood details, more stats, more fun stuff to look through.
· A truly cool mobile search site, that recognizes your phone for faster results.
· Available weekly newspaper ads in every market covering every listed home’s area.
· Co-op and corporate ads in the local real estate magazines.
· Carpenter’s TV Showcase of Homes, reaching thousands of potential home buyers every week.
· Carpenter’s YouTube channel.
· Our take-one flyer program. Not an empty box in town.
· A complete CRM program for every agent.

Yeah, this is a bit of a sales pitch, but we’re proud of it. We actually have a decent feel for what the home sellers expect from a REALTOR® and how home buyers conduct their home search. Most brokers look at the bottom line and decide what home buyers and sellers want by whether they can afford it. “Nobody reads the newspapers any more.” “Homes for sale on TV? That’s insane!” “We’re not getting into a crazy spending war with our web site. Ours is just fine the way it is.” “We had a magazine and no one called us from it.”

Looking to buy an Indianapolis home? If so, tell me you’re not an information junkie right now. Thinking of selling an Indianapolis home? Select anyone you want … just make sure they’re the hardest-working people in real estate and intent on getting your home exposed to more buyers and as a result, sold.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Stay Productive and Connected on the Cheap

2010-09-10T14:32:24Z

Since no one else wanted to do it, I got dubbed Carpenter Realtor’s “technology guru” (pause for laughter). Along with that illustrious title I get asked often if we have any kind of “inside discount” on Microsoft Office, or Dell computers or what have you. No, I don’t. However, I do let people who ask about some of the alternatives I know of.

OpenOffice is a great, free alternative to Microsoft Office. It is a productivity suite that includes alternatives to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. I use some pretty large, linked spreadsheets and OpenOffice opens them with no problem. I have yet to find an alternative to Microsoft Publisher – one that actually opens and creates Publisher files – so you’ll have to spring for the $99 stand-alone package if you have to have it (but if you’re a Carpenter agent you should use iContact to make your flyers!).

I do know of a way to get good deals on Dell computers. I have bought many, many refurbished Dells and have had no significant problems. You generally get at least twenty percent off what the laptop or desktop would have cost new and since you are buying a product already sitting on a shelf you get the added bonus of having it ship immediately. Dell’s website has a link for “Dell deals” and one of the links is Outlet. Shop away.

If you’re looking for a Mac, Apple has an education discount for those of you with kids in school or college (or for those of you who may still be in college?), and for the past couple years they’ve given away a free iPod Touch with new laptop purchases.

Don’t need an iPhone but want to be mobile and hostile without the $100 AT&T cover charge? Try a no-contract, all you can eat, plan from major carriers reselling their services cheap. Walmart sells two plans that use Verizon’s excellent network. $30 a month gets you 1,000 minutes, 1,000 text messages and 30MB of Internet data or $45 gets you unlimited minutes, messages and data.

Sprint sells their network as Boost Mobile where you get unlimited talk, text and Internet for $50 a month or, if you’re a Blackberry fan, $60 a month for unlimited talk, text, Internet and Blackberry service. You have to buy the phone for anywhere from $100 to $150 from Boost. Walmart sells simpler phones from $30 up to touch-screen models all the way up to $280. Considering that you’ll pay $99 a month for a contracted unlimited plan with the major carriers, you’ll save a boatload of cash over a typical 24-month contract period and you don’t have to sign any contracts. You can walk into any Sprint store to buy Boost Mobile phones or pay for monthly service.

Need home Internet cheap? If you don’t need to download Paramount’s entire movie catalog twice a month you can get by with AT&T’s $14.95 “naked” DSL (no phone line required) for up to 3MB download speed. Comcast has an Internet plan they don’t generally advertise that is $24.95 rather than $42.95. It is much slower than the standard speed tier (capped around 1MB download speed) but is perfectly fine for browsing the Internet, checking email and telling everyone on Facebook that you just got back from the grocery store.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

More To Do Than You Ever Knew - Indianapolis' White River State Park

2010-09-09T14:03:48Z

My wife and I relocated to Indianapolis nearly 12 years ago and yet we still find ourselves discovering and experiencing new things about this city. Last week we attended a concert at The Lawn at White River State Park for the first time and it was spectacular. The White River State Park is much more than just a park. It’s a beautiful expanse of real estate located in the heart of Indianapolis directly west of the state capitol building. The park is home to the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians & Western Art, the Indianapolis Zoo, the Indianapolis State Museum including its IMAX Theatre, the NCAA Headquarters and its Hall of Champions. Just as the name says, The Lawn is primarily a general admission venue with a full size stage situated so concert goers get a beautiful view of the sunset over the White River while the opening act performs.

The opener was a great band from South Carolina called Need to Breathe. Then Train rocked the stage for nearly two hours! Not only does the The Lawn provide awesome scenery during a concert, but they also let you take photos or videos with our cell phone! Check out this video snippet. And if you ever doubted that social media is everywhere Pat Monahan, the lead singer of Train, at one point even asked the crowd to hold up their cell phones so he could take a photo with his and send it out via Twitter.

Sometimes it feels like Indianapolis has been our home forever and then other times like this, usually when we experience a great place the city has to offer for the first time, we realize that we’re still relative newbies. If you have friends or family that have moved or relocated here within the last few years, remember that there are a lot of places to see and things to do that many of us take for granted. Get out there and try them!

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

If you sell homes, you must know tech

2010-09-07T00:00:00Z

REALTOR® magazine has an interesting article in their September issue called “Tech It Up a Notch…” Its purpose is to offer suggestions on how real estate agents can better leverage technology without necessarily using more technology.

Some of the points are bits of basic knowledge that we should already know (Bookmarking favorite sites? To answer tech questions, google it? Post more than a few photos on your homes for sale? Just play around and learn? If you don’t have these down today, the rest of the article is years beyond you and it’s time to sell the Vega and replace your bag phone). But there are some interesting points included that make this one useful reading for a typical, somewhat tech-savvy agent. Here are a few examples.

Social Networking

Create a page for your business and the communities you serve. Carpenter Realtors® has been training on this for a couple of years now. In this case, Facebook isn’t just about telling your friends you listed a house. That’s a nice thing to share your enthusiasm, but why don’t you start a page for the neighborhoods you’re farming? When I perform a long-tail search and find that you’re the expert on my neighborhood because of your community page and blog posts, I’m pre-sold that you’re the one for me.

Tech Training

First, if classes are available, take them, utilize them, ask questions. Then – friend the geek. I married one and it’s done me wonders. Getting quick, correct advice when you’re looking for apps, shortcuts and more is a huge bonus.

Increase the exposure for your homes for sale

Looking at most listings, I’d suggest everyone hire a writer. We’re too into facts and abbreviations like BRs, EIKs and WICs. Get into the websites and edit your copy into something that engages me, the buyer.If you can get reports on traffic, share every one of them with your home sellers. If you’re not getting the traffic, you can improve your description and photos. If you’re getting traffic but no offers, you have a seller who needs a price reduction. There’s little they can’t find on their own, and there’s so much they want. Share with them. Review it with them. You’re a team, remember?

Blogging

You can blog for free and become an expert. Look at me. I’m just rearranging words here and there, and I have you reading each one of them. Remember that you want to be the “expert” on your farming areas. Blogging a great way to appear to be the most knowledgeable and most involved. It’s great pre-listing stuff to send potential clients the links that help them see you as their first choice … before you even present to them.

We can’t avoid changes in technology and we must keep up on it. Unless you’re Amish and that’s one of their big rules, ain’t it? But let’s use it intelligently. Remember when emails were all the rage in instant communicating? Think they still are? Ask your twenty-something friends when they last checked their email. Remember that cool new “flip phone” you got that could ring and vibrate when a call came in? Do you still use it?

Get on board, Grandpa. Read the article and learn better ways to communicate with home sellers and buyers the way they want to be communicated with.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Tweak, Modify and Soup up your Smart Phone

2010-08-31T16:00:00Z

It was sometime around the summer of 2009 that I became dissatisfied with the ancient mobile operating system on my phone and decided to seek out the rumored leaked updates that were floating around the Internet. Thus began my near obsession with tweaking and souping up my smart phones. I started with the HTC Touch Pro, upgraded to the Touch Pro2 and now on my HTC Evo 4G running Google Android.

Carriers like Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and T-mobile don’t have a whole lot of incentive (or very likely the resources) to keep updating older smart phones to the latest and greatest versions of Windows Mobile or Android. The one exception being Apple and the iPhone but even they don’t push updates to the original iPhone anymore and the iPhone 3G didn’t get all the upgrades available in iOS 4. The carriers want you to buy new phones every year or two and, of course, resign those two-year agreements that keep you tied to them for around $1,000 a year on the average smart phone. There are also limits on how much an older phone can run – for example, the iPhone 3G I own runs dog slow with the newest Apple operating system on it because it’s made for the iPhone 4 with its slick 1GHz processor and extra memory.

However, don’t let any of that stop you from loading up your six month old smart phone with the latest, greatest and processor busting software! The two websites I go to fairly often (and by “fairly often, you should read “twice a day”) are ppcgeeks.com and xda-developers.com. They specialize in Windows Mobile and Android smart phones such as the Motorola Droid, Samsung Captivate and most of the HTC models like the EVO, Incredible and Touch Pro2.

Both sites have user forums where you can post questions, search through previous posts (highly recommend that you search for your solution to make sure it wasn’t already addressed) and, most fun, download updated or unique software. Last summer I was tired of running the dated, and by then ancient, Windows Mobile 6.1 on my touch screen smart phone. I wanted the newer, more touch-friendly Windows Mobile 6.5. After finding ppcgeeks.com, I had Windows Mobile running on my Touch Pro within a couple hours.

For my Android cell phone I have downloaded programs to underclock and undervolt the 1GHz processor in my EVO to conserve power and extend battery life, interface tweaks, free wifi tethering, different lockscreens – you name it, someone has probably already looked for it and someone else probably already posted a solution. I couldn’t imagine going back to the stock operating system on my phone. You don’t have to make wholesale changes – for example the Android operating system is very complete as-is and so is Apple’s iOS 4 – you can tweak just that one program you don’t like and really personalize your smart phone to how you like to use it. If nothing else, you’ll learn something about how your phone works or breathe new life (and save some money) into your slightly older than new smart phone.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

Carpenter Realtors' homes for sale on YouTube

2010-08-30T17:42:21Z

Carpenter Realtors recently began submitting homes for sale videos to a thing called YouTube. Interestingly, we simply started because we’d heard about that new internet thingie that everyone’s talking about and we wanted to get in on the ground floor!

At first I was thinking, “Why bother”? No other real estate company in Indianapolis is doing this for their agents at no cost. In fact, no one else is even doing it for their agents at any cost. But then I reconsidered, so … in addition to our most-comprehensive website at callcarpenter.com, our easiest-to-use mobile website, our Facebook presence and this blog, I figured the YouTube thing might just be worth checking out.

So just in the past few months, we’ve loaded well over 400 videos of homes for sale and real estate, from Carmel to Indianapolis, from Greenwood to Camby and from Greenfield to Greencastle. The videos are all homes that have been featured on Carpenter Realtors’ weekly TV Showcase of Homes, which airs Saturday mornings at 10:00 a.m. on WNDY, Channel 23. Those 60 homes are loaded to a YouTube channel we call mycallcarpenter, giving buyers yet another way to not only find a home for sale, but to find it in a way that fits their lifestyle.

So far, I gotta say I’m a bit surprised at the word of mouth that’s being generated. We’ve had thousands of views of our real estate videos, the interest in having homes showcased on our TV Showcase of Homes has more than doubled, and best of all – our real estate agents and their clients (the ones with the homes for sale, remember?) are talking. They’re talking about it and sharing those videos with other friends. And it’s not costing Carpenter agents anything to give their home sellers a nice little pick-me-up. A nice little extra effort at a time when the market is, well, soft. Isn’t that what we all should be doing for our sellers?

So maybe this YouTube thing isn’t just for Star Wars geeks and teenage girls talking about their recent shopping trips, eh?

Posted by: Jim Newell

To list and sell homes: plan your work and work your plan

2010-08-26T00:00:00Z

And then … depression set in.
Yesterday’s news that Indianapolis home sales fell 30% in July reminds us all that we’re not out of the recession yet. Yet – opportunity is all around us. Every day, real estate agents are listing and selling homes for sale. Every day, successful realtors are working to build their own personal brand, communicating that brand to potential clients, and making new contacts.

In the movie Stripes, John Winger lost his job, his apartment, his girlfriend and his car. But he still had his health! The key to keeping your finances and career healthy? Number one – don’t allow the news to affect your work habits. Dig in and work the Indianapolis real estate business using all the tools you’re given. “Plan your work and work your plan” we’re told. Do all agents have a plan? Of course not. Most hope to get by on their rapier wit and good looks. Many “wing it,” as they did when business was plentiful. Most can tell you, that doesn’t cut it today.

The list of available tools that Carpenter Realtors provides its agents contains everything from the most comprehensive free training available, to a long list of co-op advertising programs that help agents dramatically decrease their personal advertising expenses, to personal brand-building programs to help them identify and capitalize on their personal and professional strengths. Insert those tools into the company’s marketing plans for agents and for selling homes and you have a program that virtually guarantees success … if you plan your work and work your plan.

Unemployment is still high. Income is stagnant. Home prices have just begun to barely creep back up – a bit. The recession ain’t over and making forward progress will be tough. But there are still hundreds of homes being sold every day in central Indiana. Someone is listing and selling homes. Someone is cashing a commission check today. Someone is in the office today working a complete marketing plan that’s going to provide results soon. Is that you?

Posted by: Jim Newell

Why are we still faxing?

2010-08-24T23:20:00Z

I still get the calls about problems with fax lines and I hear the complaints about how long it takes to fax a 30 page document and how hard it is to read a faxed and re-faxed and re-re-faxed document and I just wonder why the habit persists to fax documents rather than scan and email them. I understand we should be even beyond scanning and should be totally paperless but that technology still just isn’t “there” yet in my mind. However, scan to email has so many advantages over old fashioned faxing that I am dumbfounded that fax machines haven’t been sent added to the list of things we just don’t do anymore like rotary phones, film cameras and socializing in person (hah!).

If you scan and email a document you can send the document straight to the intended recipient, not the office fax machine that every prying eye in the office can snoop at. Scanned documents don’t get picked up by a careless co-worker along with a stack of their copies or, worse, crinkled up in a paper jam for four hours waiting for the repairman to come fix the copier. Scanned documents also come through crystal clear with very little quality loss compared to the original. You can be anywhere and receive an emailed document, not tied to a stationary fax line at the office or home. And did I mention speed? The Internet used to be accessed via phone line – in 1995. Fax lines still use that same dial-up technology and it shows. A scanned document can be emailed in seconds. A lengthy sales contract can take twenty minutes to fax. You wouldn’t fire up your 56k modem to download a 20 megabyte PDF or printer driver so why do we still use that technology to send contracts?

I can sit on a beach on a Greek island, take a picture and post it to Facebook in literally seconds. I can take a picture of a check and deposit it into my checking account from anywhere in the world. I can geo-tag a photo and display it on a map instantly showing my location. I can download an album to my phone in one tenth the time it takes to actually listen to said album (and for you born circa 1985 reading this, an album is what they used to call a collection of songs, usually around ten of them, that they used to press into vinyl discs called “records” that would get scratched and would pop and hiss but sounded awesome and had album art and stuff you could read…but I digress). So if we have progressed this far in practically everything else, what is holding us back on the fax machine? Is it nostalgia? Something like, you can take away my vinyl records and my rotary phone, but by God, I’ll not give up my fax machine… or is it comfort food, like chamomile tea for an upset stomach and a fax machine to soothe the troubles of a lengthy contract negotiation. We’ll never know.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

Wirelessly Sync your Mobile and Desktop World with free Google services

2010-08-23T18:22:00Z

In the age of smart phones, laptops and on the go Real Estate agents, an easy way to keep your separate devices synchronized is with free Google services like Google Calendar and Google Desktop Sync. I use these free services to synchronize my Android powered smart phone with my work laptop running Microsoft Outlook 2007.

Using an Android phone there is literally no setup. On first startup the phone asks for your Google account and password and then the phone takes it from there, automatically syncing your contacts, calendar and email. On Windows Mobile, iPhone or Blackberry you have to add your Google account via Microsoft Exchange services which Google licenses from Microsoft (click on your respective phone for Google’s instructions to sync your Google account with your phone).

For your laptop, download Google Sync to get your Outlook calendar and contacts synchronized between your personal computer and Google’s servers. It’s a small app that runs in the background on your computer to handle the sync. You give the app your Google username and password, set the update frequency and you’re done.

I have never connected my smart phone to my laptop to do a sync and any time I add an appointment to Outlook it automatically shows up on my phone and vice versa automagically. As a nice side benefit, if you happen for whatever reason to be away from your phone and your laptop you can log into your calendar online at google.com/calendar and check your schedule from any Internet connected computer.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

Home repairs and services - part of the home buying process

2010-08-19T21:00:47Z

After helping a client find the perfect home for sale, after working through all the paperwork needed to make an offer, counter-offer and accepted offer, after helping those clients get to and past the closing table, there’s one important question every home buyer has for Carpenter’s Indianapolis and Central Indiana Realtors.

No, it’s not “Let’s go get a beer.” It’s “Hey, do you know someone who (fill in the blank for any home service)?”

For several months, Carpenter Realtors has been building a relationship with an Indianapolis service called PinPoint Perks. PinPoint Perks offers “the sharpest deals in town” on home services and repairs. To date, more than 200 Carpenter agents are offering the PinPoints Perks service to their home buyers and home sellers. It’s a nice “gift” perk appreciated by those homeowners.

Due to the success of our existing relationship with PinPoint Perks, Carpenter has licensed a limited use of the program for every agent to use at no cost. This is an excellent, no-cost client service tool to give top service and discount offers to our past clients for the products and services they need. Its value? Carpenter agents build a stronger relationship with home buyers and sellers. There’s no obligation for home buyers and sellers to use the service and there’s no financial relationship between the two companies. Unlike other companies who offer similar services from a subsidiary company, Carpenter Realtors doesn’t make any money from a transaction a client has with a PinPoint Perks company. It’s a service thing, not a profit thing.

To paraphrase Indianapolis’ own Don Davis of Don’s Guns “We don’t want to make money, we just love satisfied clients.”

Buying an Indianapolis or central Indiana home? Selling an Indianapolis or central Indiana home? Carpenter’s association with PinPoint Perks offers guaranteed service results with legitimate cost savings.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Nobody’s home…but your insurance better be

2010-08-16T00:00:00Z

As school starts around the country and many families are settling into their new homes, there was a very timely article written by Sandra Block of USA Today reprinted in the Indianapolis Star this weekend with some sage advice regarding homeowners insurance. You can read the entire article here. During a relocation, many times the transferring employee has to report to the new location before she’s able to sell her existing home. Sometimes the rest of the family will stay behind and continuing living in the home until it is sold. Other times, the entire family moves to the new location and the house is left on the market, vacant, waiting for a buyer. This is where the potential pitfall starts. Many homeowners’ policies are specifically written for homes that are occupied. Once a property becomes vacant for 30 days or more, many exceptions to your policy can take effect. The type of exceptions and the length of time before a home is considered vacant vary by insurer, so it’s important to check with your current insurance agent. Some companies will amend your policy to cover a vacant property, but in some cases you may have to look for additional coverage from another provider. Better to be safe than sorry…

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Facebook for Real Estate Agents

2010-08-13T00:00:00Z

Catching up on some reading, I recently ran across an old article about how real estate agents can use Facebook to create value for their “friends.” It’s relatively dated (yeah - articles about Facebook from 2009 are dated), but there are several points that remain valid and valuable.

It’s called Facebook for Real Estate Agents, created by LGM3 llc.

Here are some of the more interesting points I noticed as I re-read it during a particularly boring hotel conference room presentation. Things for real estate agents to remember as they use this still-new tool in building their real estate career. Maybe for any sales professional.

1. Facebook isn’t about selling. It’s about maintaining old relationships and building new networks. Instead of “selling” yourself or your listings on Facebook, simply build a network and offer some value to the discussions within that network. This isn’t door-knocking and cold-calling. This is about creating a valuable relationship to make them like you and want to work with you … in the future.

2. Understand that others are doing the same thing you are. Simply posting your listings is selling. Interesting status updates give your friends a reason to read yours and comment on them. Comments on their updates makes them feel validated and liked. Advice on real estate and home sales gives you expert status. Sales pitches get turned off.

3. Reconnect. There are a ton of ways that Facebook enables you to locate past clients, friends, classmates, etc. Pull out your old files. Search within your high school and college classes. You’ll find a ton of names with whom you’ll want to reconnect. Then, join groups with similar interests as yours and meet new people.

4. With the ability to create Friend Lists in Facebook, you can separate your drinking buddies from your clients. There are things you want to share with certain groups that ain’t gonna support your career and sell a house. Learning how to create those lists and how to share messages with only certain groups will help avoid the embarrassment of potential clients seeing your drunken tailgate party photos.

5. Link Facebook to your website. Carpenter real estate agents have a fully-functioning website that offers great value to their visitors, with complete homes for sale search options and all the great tools at callcarpenter.com . Give your Facebook friends a chance to get to know you better with that link.

6. Create tabs to showcase your listings and interests.

7. Facebook is a resource, not a silver bullet. Don’t Facebook to the detriment of your current clients and other marketing efforts. It’s only a part of your overall plan.

The report highlights four keys to having a successful Facebook presence: Reciprocity, Expert Status, Likeability and Social Validation. These four keys are important to every aspect of an agent’s self-promotion and personal brand, and should be applied to every Facebook plan as well.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Carpenter Realtors Night at Victory Field a Success!

2010-08-10T00:00:00Z

Over 500 Carpenter Realtors® agents, managers, and friends gathered Monday night at Victory Field in Indianapolis to cheer-on the Indianapolis Indians baseball team. The event culminated a month-long Open House challenge held by Carpenter to reward the company’s agents for their July Open House activity. For each Open House held, the agents received a reserved box seat ticket to Monday’s game. In addition, the Indianapolis Star newspaper handed out $2 bills to each attendee to treat them to refreshments. Monday night was “dollar night” at Victory Field so the $2 bills went for hundreds of hotdogs, popcorn and crackerjacks.

Carpenter agents and staff from as far away as Bedford, Bloomington, Crawfordsville, and Anderson joined agents from throughout Indianapolis and surrounding communities at Victory Field. Carpenter’s #1 agent, Jamie Hall, threw the ceremonial “first pitch” from the mound. The catcher was caught a little off-guard as Jamie fired a fastball straight across home plate! Clearly, it wasn’t the first time Jamie had tossed a baseball. Way to go Jamie!

In addition to Jamie Hall, four members of Carpenter’s management team took the field after the second inning to participate in the “dizzy bat” contest. Tom Myers, Regional Manager, Ted Bitting, Brownsburg Manager, Jennifer Blandford, Zionsville Manager, and Chris Dykes, North College Manager, all participated in the competition. Ted Bitting won the challenge while Tom Myers took a dramatic head-dive into the manicured grass of left field. The crowd had a good laugh and fun was had by all with no-one seriously injured!

Posted by: David Caveness

Relocation Policies - Mobility vs. Expense

2010-08-06T19:28:00Z

Most corporations use a relocation policy to outline the benefits and resources available to their relocating employees. Throughout my career, I’ve worked with many different types of organizations from retail sales giants like NIKE to government agencies such as the Secret Service and FBI. Relocation policies often mirror the culture of the corporation or organization – some are limited, stringent, and detailed in their do’s and don’ts. Others provide a lump sum of cash and little guidance…while still others are an ever-evolving, strategically utilized plan that accounts for market conditions as well as the employee’s tenure, position, and geographic location. The one commonality that all relocation policies have is the correlation between mobility and expense. The more mobility or faster you want your employee to move, typically the more it will cost. If a corporation provides a relocating homeowner a simple lump sum payment, the direct cost is limited but the employee may not be able to move until her house is sold.

The indirect (and often unforeseen) costs can be unlimited as the transferring employee is less productive and more distracted in her new role during the extended time to complete her relocation. On the other hand, a full home sale program with a guaranteed buyout exposes the corporation to higher risk and direct expense, but provides for a fairly quick move. In today’s “cost control” environment, the trend we are seeing from many of our corporate clients is tweaks to relocation policies in an effort to balance this mobility vs. expense trade off. Small changes such as moving a required marketing period from the onset of the move to AFTER the guaranteed offer is extended are being made. The idea here is to ensure the transferring employee is marketing her home for a significant period with the knowledge of what her worst case scenario or guaranteed buyout is. The result is typically a slight longer timeframe for the move to be completed, but a lower number of properties going into the corporate inventory and thus lower expenses. Another trend is first time movers or those employees with less tenure who in the past did not receive buyouts, but were reimbursed all the expenses related to the sale of their real estate are now receiving a capped amount or lump sum to complete their move.

Navigating the current real estate market with the guidance of an expert is tough…doing it while relocating to an unfamiliar area in a compact timeframe and with limited financial help is pure stress. If you or someone you know needs relocation assistance or policy consultation, we are here to help.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Searching Indianapolis homes for sale got easier

2010-08-04T00:00:00Z

The internet. The “information superhighway” as it was called. Anyone else feel as if that highway is jammed with traffic? I imagine it as a six-lane highway stacked with cars, trucks, semis, delivery vehicles, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians all moving at light speed.

But ain’t that why the internet is so popular? We have an unbelievable amount of information at our poorly-typing, misspelling fingertips. Google some simple term and you’ll get millions of options. Try “home repairs.” I got 121,000,000 results. That enough information for you? Or get more specific and search “Indianapolis Dentists” for 367,000 results. How about we get really descriptive, like “homes for sale under $200,000 in Avon, Indiana.” Can’t be that many, eh? How about 30,900 results?

The nice thing is that callcarpenter.com has a great number of search options available that can narrow a typical search. Whether it’s simply price and location, or price, location and beds/baths, or even adding lot size, subdivision, community features (waterfront, cul-de-sac, etc.), keyword search and more to that mix, there are a ton of options. Not enough to confuse anyone – just enough to save some time in researching Indianapolis homes for sale.

Now, ain’t what searching for a home for sale is all about? Getting better results faster?

Posted by: Jim Newell

Have You Heard About “The Unfolding”

2010-07-29T15:41:42Z

Have you heard about a 39 page book called “The Unfolding” by Price Pritchett? If you haven’t read it, go out and buy it today and read it…twice…tonight. It is self-described as “a handbook for living strong, being effective, and knowing happiness during uncertain times.” It’s an easy read and I found it right on target for navigating through these uncertain times in the real estate business. Pritchett does a great job of clarifying the impact of an uncertain future (much like we are currently facing in the Indianapolis real estate market) on the human mind and how to manage yourself rather than attempting to manage the uncertainty.

I have found “The Unfolding” to be helpful in keeping myself focused on those productive activities that I can control while waiting for the uncertainty in the real estate market to clarify itself. I encourage everyone with Carpenter Realtors® to get a copy and read it. You too will find it insightful and inspirational as you wait for the uncertainty to clear.

Posted by: David Caveness

Callcarpenter.com - An Information Buffet

2010-07-28T00:00:00Z

Welcome to the information society!

I don’t know what it is about our human need for information, but I like it. We’re extremely curious with a deep need/desire to get answers to our questions. It’s not enough to know the ocean’s deep – we have to know how deep, what lives there and what we can gain from that knowledge. We’re fascinated by outer space; to see more of it, visit it, find other life forms. What about society’s mysteries? We‘re driven to find out whodunit, where it’s hidden, why it happened.

Will we ever finally have too much information? I doubt our human brains will ever admit to being “full” and not want more.

More information is one main reason we selected the vendor for our new callcarpenter.com web site … more information than anyone else can offer when someone’s searching for an Indianapolis home for sale.

When you’re searching for a home for sale in Indianapolis or around any of our 30 Indiana offices, callcarpenter.com has more details on each home for sale and its neighborhood, the people nearby, the quality of life, schools, environment, economy and more. More detail and more information than any other local search site. Thinking of buying a home for sale in Avon? We can tell you how many people live in that zip code, what their lifestyles are like, how the schools perform, what the potential for economic growth is, what amenities are nearby and much more, even compared to county, state and national stats for each. Dozens and dozens of bits of information on every home for sale in central and southern Indiana. How do schools in Bedford compare to Greenwood? How do home values in Shelbyville compare to the average in Indiana? How are they trending over the past years? What’s the average commute for residents in Broad Ripple? How many doctors per capita in Anderson? How far is the nearest grocery or restaurant from every home for sale? It even has great detail on the history of the communities we serve.

Come on. Get your information “fix” for the day. Callcarpenter.com is like the Old Country Buffet when searching for real estate and homes for sale.

Posted by: Jim Newell

Indianapolis Celebrates Another Successful Brickyard 400

2010-07-26T21:16:00Z

The traveling community that is NASCAR leaves Indianapolis after the 17th running of the Brickyard 400 on Sunday. I enjoyed the race with friends, family, and what was reported as a “relatively small crowd” of about 140,000 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The Town of Speedway, within the city limits of Indianapolis and where the track is located, was a gracious host as always. Not to mention the fabulous traffic coordination between Speedway’s, Indianapolis’, and the State’s finest – 140,000 people and we were home in 29 minutes! Even with attendance down, the city and its leaders recognize the huge economic impact the Brickyard has on the local economy. Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard was interviewed at the Speedway talking about just that…and the that he’s rooting for home-grown Indiana’s Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart! The reality is that racing is in the blood of many Hoosiers. The sights, the sounds, and the smell of rubber and racing fuel are all a part of the experience. Jamie McMurray, the driver of the #1 car, won the race and celebrated in victory lane with his team. At the same time many of us in central Indiana celebrated right along with them knowing we had again succeeded in hosting a great event, showcased our wonderful city to many, and put dollars to work in our community that will help all.

(Photos from www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com)

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Callcarpenter.com mobile site looks great on the HTC EVO 4G

2010-07-22T00:00:00Z

I recently upgraded from the HTC Touch Pro2 to the HTC EVO 4G and while I thought the TP2 was and is a good phone (and I do miss the hardware keyboard) the 4.3” screen on my new EVO is a game changer. It is now realistic to sit and watch video or streaming TV without a magnifying glass. Combined with the EVO’s 1GHz snapdragon processor and high-resolution screen, the Internet experience on this new phone reminds me of the original iPhone ads “it isn’t kind of like the Internet, it’s the Internet”.

Carpenter Realtors new finger-friendly mobile website looks and works great on the EVO. It is now a convenience to search for homes on your mobile phone rather than a squinting exercise with full access to all the newest listings in the BLC® with all the photos you would get on the full version of the site. Combined with the 3G/4G speeds, the pages load with some snap. You can realistically do a full home search without firing up your desktop or laptop or take a Sunday drive and browse all of Carpenter’s open houses.

Posted by: George Christodoulou

Indianapolis Indians to Host "Carpenter Realtors® Night"

2010-07-20T00:00:00Z

Monday, August 9th is “Carpenter Realtors® Night” at Victory Field as the Indianapolis Indians AAA baseball team hosts our agents and their families and friends for a night at the Ol’ Ballgame. In cooperation with the Indianapolis Star newspaper, Carpenter has challenged its agents to increase their activity levels and hold record numbers of Open Houses during the month of July. For every Open House held, the agent receives a reserved box seat for the Monday night game. Based on the results of the first three Open House Sundays in July, we are anticipating over 800 to attend the August 9th game.

Flyers, posters and penants have been distributed to each Carpenter office to promote the challenge. Individual branches as adding to the promotion with fun activities at their weekly sales meetings. Some branches are passing out Crackerjacks™ or baseballs to agents for each Open House held.

The results speak for themselves. Carpenter agents and managers are meeting the July Open House “challenge” with record Open House activity.

Posted by: David Caveness

Fishers, Indiana = Best Place to Live

2010-07-20T00:00:00Z

Hey, Fishers – what are you doing right?

Not long ago, Fishers was ranked by Money Magazine as #8 among the “Best Places to Live” in America”. What did they say? “This Indiana town offers a winning combination of low-cost houses (you can snag a three-bedroom for less than $150,000), easy access to the big city, and good schools. Plus, Fishers is booming. Development abounds and fully 1,600 jobs were created here last year; major employers include Sallie Mae and medical device firm Roche Diagnostics. True, Fishers will never put anyone in mind of a quaint New England village. But thanks to its myriad advantages, including lots of community spirit, residents aren’t complaining.”

Business Week named Fishers the best place to raise your kids in Indiana, citing it as “the state’s fastest-growing community and among its most affluent. New residents move to Fishers for its top-ranked schools and proximity to major highways, airports, and metros.”

And now I see a report today that CNNMoney.com has ranked Fishers No. 9 on the best 25 list of growing communities where residents’ incomes go the furthest, particularly in the housing market. CNNMoney stated that “Fishers has a higher median home price – $174,296 – but offers a good bargain. The housing market here includes some estate-sized homes of 10,000 square feet or more, which sell for a relatively reasonable low seven figures.”

I’ve personally seen Fishers grow from what I thought would be another low-rent suburb into a real highlight among places to go. The annual Freedom Festival is incredible, as is its Summer concert series. The town has done a great job of managing its growth and turning itself into a wonderful place to live and raise a family.

Carpenter’s Fishers office has enjoyed the fruits of Fishers’ recent growth, helping hundreds of Fishers new and old residents find their dream home. Find out more about Fishers and see Fishers homes for sale on callcarpenter.com’s special Fishers section.

Posted by: Jim Newell

TAG, You’re it!

2010-07-17T00:00:00Z

Partnering with Microsoft®, Carpenter Realtors® is the first real estate company east of the Mississippi River to incorporate their new tag reader barcode system in a real estate marketing environment. We are calling it TAG IT! Accessible through over 80 million smartphones in the U.S., TAG IT! uses cutting-edge technology from Microsoft® to allow the mobile consumer to scan the colorful TAG IT! barcode with their smartphone and instantly access valuable information about Carpenter listings through videos, virtual tours, our mobile optimized website, and more.

To take advantage of the mobile optimized content available with TAG IT! mobile users must first download the free application from Microsoft® at gettag.mobi from their smartphone. Once downloaded, mobile users SNAP a photo of the TAG IT! barcode anywhere they find it on print ads, newspapers, magazines, yardsigns, even our weekly TV Showcase of Homes program andinstantlt additional content springs into action on their smartphone.

Carpenter Realtors® is committed to providing today’s consumer the in-depth real estate information they want…when they want it…and how they want to receive it. And today, a growing number of consumers want their information on-the-go over their mobile device. That’s exactly how the new TAG IT! program delivers it! TAG IT! illustrates Carpenter Realtors® ongoing commitment to applying technology to the real estate industry expanding our marketing to reach homebuyers and sellers on the go.

The TAG IT! barcode program has numerous applications within Carpenter’s exclusive Home Marketing System™. Those include: Yardsigns, Property Information Flyers, Newspaper Ads, TV Showcase of Homes, Call Carpenter for Homes magazine, Homes and Land magazine and Agent business cards and brochures.

WE invite you to “test drive” TAG IT! on your smartphone right now. To connect to a brief video using TAG IT! go to gettag.mobi from your smartphone and download the free app. Then, SNAP a photo of the attached TAG IT! barcode. It will instantly connect you to the demo video. It’s easy and fun!

Posted by: David Caveness

Open houses can generate buyer interest

2010-07-15T16:41:00Z

At a time when the real estate market appears to be, well, in the doldrums at least, I’m excited to see that hundreds of Carpenter agents (and I’m sure – hundreds more around Indianapolis) are holding open houses this weekend. Carpenter agents alone are holding open nearly 300 homes for sale, making a huge statement that they believe there are buyers out there who see current home prices as a value and understand how low mortgage rates have fallen.

If we can generate more of this enthusiasm and positive attitude, I believe we’ll see more interested, excited buyers and a faster turnaround to the housing market and perhaps, the economy.

Posted by: Jim Newell

A Time-tested Commitment: Carpenter Realtors and the Gennesaret Free Clinic

2010-07-15T00:00:00Z

Over the past 19 years, Carpenter Realtors® has raised over $900,000 for the Gennesaret Free Clinic (GFC) through a variety of fund-raising activities. Years ago, we held “The Great American Yard Sales” at the various Carpenter branches. It was a lot of work and we raised a little money. We held the annual Canal Walks along the canal downtown. That was more fun and we raised more money. Then we began to hold our annual GFC/Carpenter Golf Classic. A lot more work, more fun and we raised much larger sums of money. Last month we held our 17th annual Golf Classic and raised $28,000. Not bad considering these tough economic times. Each of these fund-raising activities reflects a time-tested commitment made 19 years ago by Carpenter Realtors® to become a major contributor of money and people to the then new idea of a free medical clinic devoted to the health needs of homeless families in central Indiana.

The Gennesaret Free Clinic’s mission statement reads:

“The GFC is composed of health care professionals and other concerned individuals [like Carpenter’s Associates, Managers and Staff] who have heard a calling to offer their talents and training [and fund-raising abilities] to the homeless and indigent. Through their volunteer efforts, they endeavor to provide competent, accessible and compassionate health care to the needy. Their faith moves them to show special respect and dignity to those who have been neglected and they realize that in such a healing encounter they are all made more whole by God.”

GFC has stood the test of time in their unwavering commitment to their mission statement. And, Carpenter Realtors®, its Associates, Managers, Staff and participating vendors have continued to fulfill their time-tested commitment to funding the Gennesaret Clinic. That commitment is as strong today as the day we began 19 years ago. The need is never-ending and so is Carpenter’s commitment.

Posted by: David Caveness

July is NASCAR Month in Indy

2010-07-12T00:00:00Z

Photo from
Indianapolismotorspeedway.com

As we have for the past 6 years, my family gathered in Joliet IL this past weekend to watch the NASCAR races at Chicagoland Speedway. The sea of tailgate camps and flags representing favorite drivers reminded me that soon we’d be welcoming this spectacle in our town. Indianapolis is synonymous with racing, but this month it’s not Helio, Danica, and Tony Kanaan. NASCAR invades the Brickyard in the summer with qualifying on Saturday July 23rd and the actual race on Sunday July 24th. A full schedule of the events can be found here. It is hard to believe that this will be the 16th running of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard™ at The Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The IMS is a special place for many and a huge economic engine in our city. Many central Indiana families’ livelihoods are tied to the handful of major racing events that occur at the speedway each year. The IMS is located in the Town of Speedway situated in the near west side of Indianapolis.

The Town of Speedway, though within Indianapolis, has its own town council, police and fire departments, and school system. It’s a family friendly neighborhood with a storied history and home to one of the crown jewels of our great state. As race weekend draws closer I’ll provide some insight into some of the activities that surround the event and what it is like to attend a race with 250,000 other fans!

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

International Solar Panel Manufacturer Chooses Tipton, IN

2010-07-07T00:00:00Z

There’s exciting news today for the town of Tipton located about 35 miles north of Indianapolis. Abound Solar, based in Loveland, CO between Denver and Fort Collins, has announced it will occupy a vacant manufacturing facility in Tipton. Hiring is scheduled to beginning in 2011 and Abound expects to employ nearly 850 people by 2013. You can read the entire article from the Indianapolis Star newspaper by clicking here.

This is another story of success for Indianapolis and the surrounding counties of central Indiana that continue to recruit alternative energy and manufacturing companies to the area. With much of the local unemployment coming from the automotive industry, the facilities and available talent pool make central Indiana a prime option. In addition to local hiring, we’ll be looking forward to helping those professionals and their families that elect to make Tipton or another town within central Indiana their home.

For relocation assistance and information on central Indiana communities including neighborhood comparisons, cost of living analysis, school information and homes for sale, you can visit my website at www.ryancarrell.callcarpenter.com or call me directly at 317-573-5458 x217.

Posted by: Ryan Carrell

Why use a licensed Carpenter agent to buy a home?

2010-07-06T14:38:00Z

Thinking of buying a home? Regardless of the news reports, people are buying and homes are selling. Is it time for you to start looking, and if so, why would you want to work with a licensed Realtor®? You can search for millions of homes online, so using a realtor isn’t about finding a home – it’s about the buying process. If you can’t comfortably answer the following questions, you should be serious about seeking out the right real estate agent to help you through the process.

What are the steps involved in scheduling a showing?How do you correctly complete a Purchase Agreement?What happens when there are counter-offers?Once an offer is accepted, what’s the right way to handle an inspection?How do you qualify for a loan? When should you apply?What about the closing, including title service, location, times, required funds, etc.?

The more knowledge you have available during the home buying process, the more comfortable you’ll be with the entire transaction.

As the real estate leader in central Indiana, we know the home buying process. There are 700 Carpenter agents ready to work with you - more than anyone. That simply means we have more people who are the experienced, knowledgeable agents for the neighborhood you’ve chosen to live in. They’re the experts and we’re the company that gives them the support you expect from Indiana’s largest. And each has that knowledge and support to help you get through the process quickly, with as little stress as possible.

Posted by: Jim Newell

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