Transactions: 6,233
Volume: $2,156,226,885
Commission Paid: $59,543,483
Average Sales Price: $345,937

51.46% of transactions were listings
48.54% of transactions were sales
5% of sales were cash

1. Corporate/Leadership: $42,900
2. Leesburg Pike: $26,090
3. Burke: $23,385
4. Franconia $9,100
5. Ashburn: $7,096

Thanks to all of those who donated to CMN in 2011! Interested in giving? Sign up for the Miracle Home Program by contacting your front desk staff member.

Highest Team Volume:  James Nellis II – Burke

Highest Team Transactions: Ronald Sawyer – Chesapeake

Highest Individual Volume: George Torres – Leesburg Pike

Highest Individual Transactions:  George Torres – Leesburg Pike

I admit I was skeptical when I heard C-21 was going with a Super Bowl commercial. After all, the company had sworn off TV advertising fairly recently, instead claiming it was better to focus on the Internet. Perhaps they should have as a USA Today panel of consumers ranked the commercial second-to-last. The Wall Street Journal grouped it with a handful of “spots that fell flat,” based on the thoughts of advertising experts.

We all know that a Super Bowl commercial has to be killer since there are so many other awesome commercials that air during the game. So, instead of that money being spent on Super Bowl Sunday, what would it buy another time?

- On a National level you could purchase about 32 thirty second spots.
- On a local level in a top 20 market (Los Angeles, Denver, DC, Philly among others)  you could buy over  3,000 thirty second TV spots in highly rated programming.

To put it into perspective, you could run a healthy local TV schedule for a good 12-15 months with a $3 million dollar budget.

I like the RE/MAX approach: spread the ad fund over multiple media channels over the course of a year. You get more impressions and your brand is not lost in the shuffle or picked on the day after the big game.

“I think cash buyers affect two different parts of the market… a lot in the distressed market and then there are cash investors,” Brian Block with Virginia based Re/Max Allegiance said.

Block believes the cash investors make it easier to for home sales to surge, but affects competition for consumers. “This is having its push on first time home buyers, who think they can scoop up distressed homes but they can’t because for cash investors it’s easier,” Block said.

Click here for the entire article.

Not surprisingly, RE/MAX dominated the list. A breakdown of the national brands that made the list (20 companies were ranked):
RE/MAX: 6
Coldwell Banker: 1
Keller Williams: 1
Prudential: 1
Sotheby’s: 1
Century 21: 0

The top five:
Long & Foster
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
RE/MAX Allegiance
McEnearney
TTR Sotheby’s

Richmond (89%)
Fairfax (77%)
Burke (72%)
McLean (71%)
Ashburn (70%)
Reston (69%)
Georgetown (65%)
Capitol Hill (60%)

Congratulations to the offices listed above. See your broker if you are interested in participating and have yet to sign up. All of the money raised goes direct to your local CMN children’s hospital.

Brian Block, a real estate broker and a lawyer, who heads the RE/MAX offices in McLean and Arlington, said the 70 brokers he supervises are experiencing a “growing number of cash deals” for high end houses. “There is a lot of money in the D.C. area,” including two family incomes, executives of many of the private companies that are here to service government agencies, he said. Block said between his two offices he has some 60 to 70 houses in the million dollars plus range.

Some are older homes like at 2320 Tuckahoe St. in Arlington, which was built in1928 and is on the market for $1,195,000, others like a town home at 1402 Ingleside Ave., McLean priced at $959,000 were built in the 2000s.

Block said the 2011 season started slowly. He speculated that it was because of the weather and buyer uncertainty, but in April and May it has picked up speed. “I think it is going to be a good year.”

Along with loan business changing, the industry has changed. There were 14,000 agents in the Northern Virginia Real Estate Association in the mid-2000s, now there are 9,000, said Block. He said there were 40,000 agents in Virginia and now there are 28,000 registered.

“They are more professional as well,” he said. He has been a real estate broker for 10 years and before that practiced real estate law. “I learned where the problems occurred and now I try to avoid them.”

For the entire article click here.