If you are intrigued, give us a shout and we’ll shoot you over some more info.

At Nest, we’ve been big advocates of using video to help educate customers and clients.  We’ve tried a lot of different video ideas over the last few years: property tours, real estate education videos, neighborhood videos, and even a video about Nest Realty’s values. We decided a few months ago to dive a little deeper with our Charlottesville real estate video.

So, we’re announcing the upcoming launch of our ‘Live Where You Love’ video series in Charlottesville.  The series will take an in-depth look at several areas and neighborhoods in Central Virginia.  But we’re not stopping there.   We’re also producing videos on some more in-depth topics like the impact of the airport on Charlottesville, deep dive looks at local businesses and how they are thriving in Charlottesville, and an in-depth look at the thriving local wine and beer industry.

We’re taking great care to produce short films that are well-produced, fun to watch, and (most importantly) informative.  Our goal with these videos is to capture the true essence of what it’s like to live in Charlottesville and the surrounding areas.  We hope these videos not only inform potential residents on life in Charlottesville, but also to further educate current locals of  some more in-depth aspects of the region.

We’ll be releasing our first video in the series next week.  Stay tuned!

Since launching our web site in January of 2009, we’ve gone through a couple of iterations and improvements…nothing too dramatic…just small to medium-sized updates to freshen our look and  enhance the user experience.

So, based on feedback and a desire to freshen things up a bit, we’re embarking on a month-long journey to improve our web presence.  As of today, we’ve launched Nest 3.0, which, in actuality, is just a small change.  Nest 3.1 is a much bigger change – expect that in the next month or so.

So, what’s Nest 3.0?  The need for it is founded on our fortunate growth and expansion over the last 10 months in Hampton Roads and the New River Valley. With web searchers coming to our site not just from Charlottesville and Central Virginia, but from other points in the state of Virginia, we needed a way to jump quickly to the right ‘city’ to start searching for homes and learning about Nest.  So, we created a new – yet simple – landing page where you can easily select your desired market and jump to the right location.

We’ve taken a slightly different approach than most real estate companies, though.  Whereas we are taught (via conferences and web design gurus) to load up home page ‘links‘ and ‘keywords‘ to enhance our search engine optimization, we’ve gone the opposite route.  We’ve kept it clean, simple, and free of clutter.

Just like we are aiming to be be ‘not just another real estate company’, we don’t want just another real estate web site.

Stay tuned in a few more weeks for our next update (Nest 3.1).  This will include more content, an updated look to our Charlottesville pages, and a full site for the New River Valley.

Think we’re done there?  No way.  We’ll have some more surprises coming in late September and early October.

As always, we appreciate your continued feedback and suggestions with everything that we do – please keep the ideas flowing!

Turns out the photo was a lead-in to an article on 3D video and how researchers at the University of Arizona have made a breakthrough with holographic technology.

Remember this classic scene from Star Wars?  Well, this may be reality sooner than you think.

Pretty cool, right?  You’ll be able to take a video and show it in 3D…like something out of Star Wars.  (And what’s best of all?  You won’t need to wear those corny 3D glasses to see it)

But this got us thinking: how cool will this be for real estate?  Answer: it could, once again, transform how buyers search for homes.

Here’s how we see it: You stroll into your local Nest Realty office in the morning with your cup of Starbucks to prepare for a few hours of house hunting.  But you’re not going to hop in the car and drive from house-to-house for the next 3 hours.  Instead, you go back into one of our three Search Rooms.  Each Search Room is dark – black walls, dimmed lights – and has 6 comfy chairs located around a Microsoft Surface-type touch screen table.

Your area tour begins.

Your Nest agent takes you on a quick tour of Charlottesville, Ivy, and Crozet…you watch a few quick neighborhood videos to get the feel of the area and overlay all of the coffee shops to make sure you are within a mile of one.  (Or we could even take you on a tour of Virginia Beach, but that’s a story for another day…)

Then you ‘arrive’ at your first house.  You tap the house twice and a holographic image of the listing agent pops up on the table, welcomes you to the house, and begins to tell you about the house and neighborhood: ‘Welcome to 123 Rugby Road.  This is a great house – built in 2007, this 4 bedroom home is just a 5 minute walk to UVa…’

After the intro, you are literally taken on a tour of the house – through the front door, into the kitchen and family room, upstairs through the master suite, into the garage, and through the back yard.

During your three hours of searching, you toured 20 homes and made follow up appointments to see 3 ‘in person’ the next day.  All in all, it was an efficient morning – you got to preview 20 homes (probably about 12 more than you would have if you had to actually drive to each house) and the sellers didn’t have to leave the house for you to see it.

The utilization of these 3D videos are pretty amazing and far-reaching.  According to the article, this could happen in 10 years…maybe sooner.  Until then, we’ll have to keep marketing and showing houses with the technology and resources at hand.  But you can bet that we’ll be tracking this technology over the coming years…

Want to learn a little more about technology in real estate?  Check out Jim Duncan’s RealCentralVA for his post and series on real estate technology.

New Home Page
Thanks to our friends at Google Analytics, we’ve gotten some great feedback on who clicks where and what was interesting to our web users.  So, we’ve simplified the home page by removing a bit of content and focusing the home page on 4 major pieces…

1. Home Search – it’s the ultimate reason why people come to real estate sites, so we’re putting this even more front and center than it was previously.  (We’ll talk about these search options in a second…)
2. About Charlottesville – besides searching for homes, people want to know about the area they are searching, right?  We think so.  So, we’ve kept our ‘Area Guides’ accessible…making it easy for you to take a quick snapshot of our 13 Areas or dive in more if you’d like.
3. How’s The Market? – We wish this question was easier to answer now…but we’re still tackling it head on.  If you’ve read our blog, The Nest Report, you know we like to dig into the numbers.  But we’re integrating auto-generated monthly charts and graphs to give you more of a snapshot of the market.  (This is currently just a quick market snapshot, but stay tuned for some pretty sweet searchable graphs…coming soon!)
4. About Nest - We may catch a little grief from the web design gurus for putting our story front and center on the home page, but we actually think the belief system of a brokerage and their agents is important.  At Nest, we’re different.  And before you choose an agent, you should know a little about their brokerage and support system.  The video is 3 minutes and 47 seconds…maybe a little long for some…but if you watch it, you’ll probably know if we are the right firm for you. (And that’s a pretty good use of 3:47.)

Home Search Improvements

Ultimately, users on real estate web sites want to be able to search for homes.  We think search is done poorly on most brokerage sites. Most sites have one way to search and it’s clunky and not intuitive.  At Nest, we want to put the options in your hands – everyone searches differently and we’re aiming to offer as many search options as is possible.  We allow you to search by price, beds/bath, county, zip, street name, acreage, home type, mls number, area, neighborhood, and school.  And now, you can search by homes with price reductions and also by homes listed in the last 1, 7 or 14 days.  Want to search for 3+ bedroom homes, under $500k, in Forest Lakes that have been listed in the last 14 days?  Go for it.  Or how about condos in Charlottesville with a recent price reduction?  You can do that, too.

How’s The Market?

If you are selling a home in Charlottesville or Albemarle County, you probably don’t want to know.  But guess what?  We’re going to tell you anyway.  Our Market Reports section is in Phase I right now – just a quick snapshot of the Total Sales, Days on Market, and Median Home Price by City or County.  But, as we mentioned earlier, we’re expanding on this shortly.  Soon, you’ll be able to see trendlines and charts for these stats…and also search the charts for 1, 3, and 5 year charts.

We get asked a lot: why are you giving clients and web users all of this data?  The answer is simple: because they want it….and it’s helping them to make informed decisions when they buy and sell homes and investment properties.  The days of hoarding information is long gone.  At Nest, we believe in empowering our clients with the right information and guidance to help enable them to make wise real estate decisions.

That’s it for now (but definitely stay tuned for the next phase of Market Reports).  We’ve got some more plans to not only improve our web site, but the overall experience of our clients when they work with a Nest agent.

Market conditions aside, it’s going to be a fun next few months at Nest Realty.

According to Inman News: 

This list of individuals selected for this report includes real estate agents and brokers, technologists, economists, enthusiasts and analysts. They are luminaries in the online world of real estate whose insight and commentary inspires others, provokes debate and incites change.

Jim Duncan runs the popular local blogs, RealCentralVA and RealCrozetVA, and has been a speaker at many national real estate conferences, including this past year’s National Association of Realtor Conference in San Diego. 

Check out Jim’s blogs for Charlottesville real estate market statistics, Charlottesville neighborhood videos, and commentary on local and national real estate trends.

In August, Nest Realty was awarded the ‘Most Innovative Brokerage’ honor by Inman News at the 2009 Inman Connect Conference in San Francisco.

Our first video focused on Crozet.  Now it’s on to Charlottesville.

The City of Charlottesville may only be 10 square miles, but it packs a lot of punch. Consistently featured as a small town with big city options, Charlottesville is full of culture, entertainment, and fantastic food.

The University of Virginia serves as one of the area’s major employers as well as the cultural hub of Central Virginia. From frequent opportunities for continuing education to top notch cultural events, UVa offers plenty of variety for every Charlottesville resident.  Each year, the Cavaliers field nationally ranked teams in soccer, lacrosse, tennis, and baseball.  The John Paul Jones arena plays host to Tony Bennett and his Cavalier men’s basketball team.  And during the fall, over 60,000 fans pack Scott Stadium on Saturdays to see the Hoos battle the best of the ACC in one of the nation’s most beautiful college football stadiums.

About a mile from UVA, the Historic Downtown Mall, complete with free wi-fi is an outdoor pedestrian mall lined with eclectic shops, wine bars, music venues, and top-notch eateries. Every Friday from April until October, locals enjoy Fridays After Five – a free outdoor concert series – and a Saturday morning farmer’s market.  Although these events bring out thousands, the Downtown Mall stays alive 365 days a year with great restaurants, an ice park, movie theatre, and multiple music venues – including The Paramount,The Jefferson Theatre and The outdoor Charlottesville Pavilion. 

Just steps from the Downtown Mall, even more shops and restaurants abound.  The Warehouse district includes a variety of design and boutique shops and new residential condominiums.  The Main Street Market is made up of local eateries, artisan shops, a florist, and an organic butcher.  The Downtown ACAC has top notch fitness facilities, a rooftop pool and serves as a destination for thousands of locals each week.

Just a few minutes from Downtown, and a short walk from The University, Barracks Road is chock full of local boutiques and national chains.  2 grocery stores, Old Navy, Barnes & Noble, Banana Republic, and Anthropologie anchor the shopping.  But local favorites like Greenberry’s Coffee, Staples Barbershop, and the Albemarle Angler allow Charlottesvillians to shop local.

Charlottesville real estate options are diverse and ever-expanding. With the City’s resurgence in popularity, new in-fill developments of single family, town homes, and condominiums are popping up in select areas where land is still available.

However, the majority of Charlottesville real estate consists of established, classic neighborhoods with mature trees and traditional architecture. Several neighborhoods are within steps of either the Downtown Mall or UVA, but convenience comes at a price. If you are willing to walk (or bike) a mile, then prices become much more affordable.

Nature lovers feel at home in the City with numerous scenic trails, including the 2.3 mile Rivanna Trail, and over 25 City parks.  McIntire Park serves host to a 9-hole golf course, playgrounds and softball and baseball leagues.  And McIntire’s big brother park, Pen Park has an outstanding 18 hole golf course that host’s the annual City Championship, as well as playgrounds, picnic areas, eight tennis courts and an outdoor fitness center, all on more than 250 acres with mountain views. Other city parks offer amenities from greenspaces to the newest city park, the Meade Park waterpark. 

 If you are looking to be in the heart of it all (geographically and culturally), then the City of Charlottesville is the place to be.

Ultimately, it’s all about communication – between Realtors and clients, customers, visitors, the public …

Other nominees in the category include: @properties, Better Homes and Garden, Coldwell Banker, John L. Scott, and Redfin. 

We’re extremely honored to be nominated by Inman and to be included in the same breath as some of these fantastic companies.  I’ve looked up to all of those brokerages and have studied their business models, web sites, and processes.

The real exciting part of our nomination is that it proves that you don’t have to be big to innovate or to make a difference.  The other 5 nominees are admittedly bigger and have a larger footprint than us.  @properties is the #1 independent firm in Chicago.  BHG is quickly becoming a national power brand.  Coldwell Banker has over 3500 offices.  John L. Scott did over $9 billion in sales volume in 2008.  Redfin has opened 10 offices throughout the country and is backed by several major venture capital firms.

And then there’s Nest.  We’re less than a year old, have 6 full-time agents, and just opened our first office location a few weeks ago in Downtown Charlottesville. 

But we have vision and principles.  And we’re building our company philosophy and business around these principles. 

1. Commitment to technology and innovation.  We started with the launch of our web site.  Then we introduced our signs.  Now we’re plowing full steam ahead with video.  (Stay tuned on that)  But we won’t stop there – we’re continuosly researching and brainstorming new ideas and better ways to help our clients.  It’s a never-ending process and we pride ourselves on staying on the cutting edge.

2. Transparency and Client Education. We believe that informed, educated clients are happy clients.  So, we strive to provide the truth to all of our clients.  That includes market reports, up-to-date data, full disclosure, and no pushy sales pitches.

3. Nest Realtors are Professionals. It’s unfortunate that standards for Realtors are too low.  We feel as though the bar needs to be raised and we’ve raised it for all of our agents.  All Nest agents must have a minimum of 3 year’s full-time experience, have achieved their broker’s license, and passed an internal screening/interview process.  If you work with a Nest agent, you can rest assured you are working with a true professional.

4. It’s All About Our Clients.  Everything we do, ever new idea we have, and every new plan we implement is based on helping our clients.  It’s an overriding theme throughout Nest every day…and will continue to be for a long, long time. 

Congratulations to the other 5 firms for their nominations – they’ve definitely broken the mold and understand that there is room for improvement in the real estate world. 

This nomination is pretty exciting for us, but we’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg.  We’ve got a select group of smart agents with great ideas and a strong commitment to excellence…and we can’t wait for what the future holds.