First and foremost, whether you want to allow people into your home is a decision that you should make along with your medical professional. In the event you are willing to allow showings, homes are still selling in many states. One state that we have seen multiple properties go under contract in during the last 10 days is Arizona. Since March 20th, we have had multiple AZ properties go under contract. Including 5 in the last 3 days.  Outside of AZ, we had a CA listing that went under contract within 48 hours of listing. We have also seen multiple properties that we have listed go under contract in NV in the last few days. In DFW, TX, a new listing yesterday already has an offer today.

This is not to suggest that now is the most ideal time to list your home. However, you have to weigh the pros and cons. Right now, many seller’s are pulling their homes off the market. When they will return these homes to the market remains to be seen. However, if you pull your home off the market or you wait to list your home, you have to consider the possibility that the market may see a flood of inventory when this pandemic passes.

ARMLS Flat Fee MLS Listing:

Arizona Flat Fee MLS Listing

Phoenix is still our home base and the market I follow most closely. Since 03, we have seen the rise, fall, and rise again of property value in the Phx Metro Area. Phoenix is serviced by the ARMLS system. Year in and Year out, Congress Realty ranks in the top 10 for all Valley agents when it comes to total properties sold. 2019 was no exception. Through our flat fee MLS program, Congress Realty sold over 50 Million dollars worth of residential real estate in the state of AZ alone. ARMLS includes Phoenix and all of the surrounding area. This includes Buckeye, Florence, Queen Creek, Scottsdale, Anthem, Carefree, Mesa, Chandler, Fountain Hills, and so forth. In all of these areas, we offer both Electronic Lockboxes and Sign and Post installation. With nearly 20 years in the Phoenix market, we are looking fwd to another exciting year.

Happy New Year! We are excited to take on 2020 and continue to build upon the success of 2019. This past year, we worked with more buyers than ever before who were taking advantage of our buyer rebate program. If getting cash back at closing sounds like something you are interested in on your next purchase, reach out to us. We will rebate 2/3rds of any commission paid to our office back to the buyer at closing.  You will be amazed how simple it is to get thousands of dollars back at closing.

A few notes from the start of the year, Arizona continues to boom. We have seen a remarkable increase in offers coming in on listed properties with Congress Realty in Arizona since after the holiday. More and more agents are using the showing time app in Arizona and Texas. If you are listed with our firm or considering listing and have questions regarding Showing Time, reach out to us. It is a simple tool to use to manage showings and review Realtor feedback from previous showings on your property. Las Vegas, Nevada continues to see a spike in closed sales and slight decrease in supply on the market.

We will continue to provide market updates for available inventory and sold data for various markets that we cover throughout the year.

For most of the states that we cover, 2019 posted strong #’s for sellers. Areas like Phoenix and Southern California continued to see appreciation and shorter days on market. Markets like Dallas cooled after record setting appreciation in 2017 and 2018 but still showed gains in 2019. What should sellers expect in 2020? Inventory #’s are still low in many markets. Las Vegas for example is dipping below 3 months of available inventory on the market at the present moment. This is a strong sign that Las Vegas will once again be a strong seller’s market in 2020. Phoenix should follow a similar path. Inventory #’s are still well below a balanced market in the Phx area. What about markets like Seattle and Boise? Seattle and Boise saw incredible appreciation in 2017 and 2018 but still posted moderate gains in 2019. There are no signs pointing towards a dramatic change from 2019 to 2020 in both of these markets.

Using Vegas as an example and using Data from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. Available inventory in Las Vegas stands right between 2.7 and 2.8 months. Compare this to this time last year of 3.4 months of available inventory. What is a healthy balance in Las Vegas? Typically about 6 months of inventory produces a stable market. What does that mean for sellers in Las Vegas? Most likely shortened days on market and continued appreciation at the start of 2020.

By the end of the year, we will have local coverage for the Ventura County, CA MLS system. Property owners in Ventura County will now be able to list properties on the local MLS through Congress Realty. We are excited about this expansion and look forward to working with homeowner’s and land owners in this area of Southern California.

Showing Time, the very popular showing service used in Arizona, NV, etc.. is coming to the state of TX. Showing Time has already launched in the DFW Market and is launching in early November for San Antonio. Showing Time allows Realtors to schedule showings through the Showing Time App. Homeowners receive an email notification when a Realtor wants to show through the App. (Text notification is also available) The homeowner with one click can accept or decline the appt. If the owner declines the appointment, the homeowner can propose a new showing time that automatically is sent back to the Realtor who requested the showing appt. Showing Time is an extremely powerful tool for both Realtors and Homeowners. Homeowners can actually set pre-determined showing dates and times that are acceptable or even black out certain dates through the Showing Time App. More info to follow in the upcoming weeks and how this affects CSS in Texas.

Once your listing is activated on the MLS, we will send you an email with access to what we call the Private Client area. The subject of this email will include the MLS#. When you open up the email, your login and password to the private client area will be near the very top of the email. Once you login, at the top of the screen you will see a welcome message and a blue hyperlink to download a copy of your MLS listing.

What is the difference between your MLS listing and sites like Zillow or Realtor.com? The MLS listing will be much more detailed and contain information that Zillow and Realtor.com will not publish. For example, your MLS listing will have your buyer’s agent commission listed along with the expiration date of the listing. In addition, the MLS will have detailed showing instructions.

Why do I want to review my MLS listing? It’s imperative that you review your listing as quickly as possible so that you can submit changes to your listing if needed. Not only is the MLS by far and away the most important site to market your home, but it also is responsible for feeding the data that is posted to Zillow and Realtor.com

Click to Read Congress Realty Reviews from Google

We are incredibly excited and proud of our many 5 star reviews on sites like Zillow and Google. In the upcoming weeks, we will feature a few of the reviews we have received recently from our customers. Much of our business is repeat business and word of mouth. The following review was posted to Google in the summer of 2019 by one of our clients:

An Electronic Lockbox is a lockbox that is accessible to all Realtors through the use of their key fob or smart phone. The Electronic box is sometimes referred to as a Supra Box or Sentrilock box. (depending upon your area) This is the type of lockbox that would be used by any Full service traditional Realtor with a listing on the MLS. The advantages of using an Electronic box include a more professional appearance during a showing, tracking who goes in and out of the property, tracking how long someone is in the property, and greater security in that a non Realtor(R) can not access the box.

Mechanical lockboxes are accessible via anyone who has the code to that lockbox. This includes Realtors and members of the public. Advantages of mechanical boxes include being able to get contractors in and out of the property easily and a much lower cost when compared to the Electronic boxes. Disadvantages include: They can be much easier to break into. Most banks and REO vendors utilize mechanical lockboxes, which some sellers do not want to be associated with. Anyone with the code has access  to the box and mechanical lockboxes will not track activity. Lastly, some MLS’s will not allow a code to be published in the MLS. Thus, each showing agent may have to contact you and speak with you to acquire the code. This could result in missed showings in you are unavailable to answer your phone.

Other notes – For the markets of NWMLS in the Seattle area, Prospector in the Sacramento area, and NNRMLS in the Reno area, the MLS will only allow a mechanical box to be on the property if an MLS issued Electronic box is also on the property. These particular MLS’s claim this is for the safety and security of the property. It is important to note that this is not our rule. These 3 MLS’s enforce this rule for all listings from all agencies who list a property in that particular MLS.

Showing time is an application used by agents to set up and manage showings electronically. It has become extremely popular in Arizona and New Mexico over the last year. In addition, it is gaining traction in part of NV, ID, and AK.

On the MLS listing, an agent can click on showing time to make an appt on a particular listing. When the agent does this, showing time will send us the showing request via email. We then fwd the email to your email address. When you receive this email, you will see a blue icon that says “Action Required”. When you click this, showing time will give you the option to accept, decline, or propose a new showing time.

At the request of the homeowner, we can add your email to showing time. This will allow you to receive the showing time request in real time versus having our firm fwd the request to you manually.

Another positive of showing time is the app will automatically ask the showing Realtor for feedback after the showing is complete. We are happy to fwd this feedback to you upon receipt.

If an owner does not want to use showing time, we can shut it off completely but would need written instructions from the owner to do so. We highly recommend against shutting off showing time but will do with a written request from the owner.

Showing Time is included at no additional cost on all of our MLS listings. (in areas where showing time is offered by the MLS)