I'm tied up in class today but found a couple of interesting things to share with you.

This is the first in a series of stories by the Albany Times Union newspaper exploring the changes occurring in how people live both because of rising energy prices and the increasing numbers of senior baby boomers. While the towns and cities they refer to may be in NY, this is a story that's being repeated around the country.

Saturday's Washington Post's real estate section contained an interesting story about consumers finding real estate agents online through social media sites and things like blogs. How well do you feel you can get to know an agent (or anyone else) through a blog?

And, lastly, I've begun experimenting with the use of true video (as opposed to "virtual tours") on my listings. I've just posted the first one on YouTube and would welcome your feedback, not just on what you think of this video, but whether you see this as significantly better for buyers than a typical slide show.

The Washington Post, in honor of Earth Day, is doing a series of online chats this week related to living "green".

Earlier this week they had a chat about green building and remodeling. It's worth taking a look at, especially if you're thinking about doing any remodeling or are looking for ways to save energy around the house.

Saturday's Washington Post carried a story about foreclosure activity that primarily looked at Prince William county. As the story makes clear, things are pretty bad in Prince William County. The number quoted in the article is that 5.5% of the homes in the county are in some phase of foreclosure.

I took a look at RealtyTrac, a web site that specializes in providing foreclosure listings. It shows 3204 homes in Prince William County in foreclosure out of 5573 homes currently listed for sale. It says an additional 881 homes are in pre-foreclosure. And 1932 homes are up for auction. Some of those auctioned homes are likely to be foreclosures, although certainly not all of them.

To give you a feel for the rest of the area, Culpeper County has 137 properties in foreclosure, 20 pre-foreclosure and 97 up for auction. That's out of 819 listings.

Fauquier County has 111 foreclosures, 2 pre-foreclosures and 93 properties up for auction out of 730 listings.

Rappahannock County has 4 foreclosures, 0 pre-foreclosures and 6 properties to be auctioned.

Warren County has 0 foreclosures according to RealtyTrac, although I seriously doubt their data on this county. There are 4 in pre-foreclosure and 73 listings to be auctioned.

This was in the Washington Post as part of a Q&A with one of the local REALTOR associations.

We are listing our Cascades townhouse next month and were wondering about pricing. We have lived there nine years and paid under $200K in 1999. This information is available to anyone accessing the Loudoun County Appraisal District Web site. Should we expect buyers to know this information and, if they do, should we also expect to get "low-balled" more than someone who doesn't have as much equity? Will we have to adjust our price/expectations accordingly?

I don't believe you need to be concerned with the public records and how much you purchased your home for nine years ago. The biggest issue is how big your mortgage is, and no one knows that but you and your bank. Contact a Realtor and have them do a comparative market analysis and take their advice on pricing your home to match your home type and area.

This was part of a longer article and many of the answers weren't particularly good. But this one in particular seemed worth commenting on.

First of all, you should always assume that buyers will have all publicly available information in their possession. Even if the buyers haven't thought to search out this information for themselves any decent real estate agent will be pulling the tax records and showing that information to their client. Sellers who assume they can hide some information from potential buyers are always asking for trouble. In the age of the internet, everybody knows or, at least, can know, everything!

Secondly, the buyers should not base their offer on what a seller bought the house for. Regardless of what you paid for this house, in a falling market, you are likely to get a low ball offer. The buyers know, and certainly their agent knows, that a year from now there's a good chance that the value of that home is less than it is now. It might not be worth a lot less. It's certainly possible we're near a bottom. But with that kind of uncertainty all buyers will lowball an offer and all sellers should expect to have to deal with that.

The other point I'd make here is that REALTOR associations should not have non-REALTORs answering these questions!

The real estate market was front page on the Washington Post again yesterday. And, there are a couple of interesting lines that say a lot about our local market here.