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Kristen Crabtree speeds up the house-hunting process in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties with a real estate search for any cell phone

January 18, 2010 (San Luis Obispo, CA)—One of the top real estate agents in San Luis Obispo County is introducing a way for clients to view all of the homes for sale in the area with any cell phone. Kristen Crabtree with Century 21 Hometown Realty is providing clients with a mobile real estate search created by Smarter Agent that makes it possible to search all local property listings from their mobile device, regardless of whether it is listed by Ms. Crabtree or another broker or agent. Ms. Crabtree’s mobile real estate search is the only house-hunting tool that works on 95% of cell phones across all carriers.

With Ms. Crabtree’s Smarter Agent application, interested home buyers can be in any neighborhood and view detailed property information at the touch of a button. The GPS technology in the mobile phone, when available, locates users and pulls up addresses and information on listings in their immediate area. Sales price, square footage, tax information, beds/baths, interior and exterior features, pictures and more become available instantly in the palm of their hand.

Consumers can also search by address, community name, city or zip code when GPS is not available, or if they want to search for real estate in an area other than their current location.

The “Call to See” feature within the mobile application connects users to Ms. Crabtree if they have questions or want to schedule a tour of the property.

“This is a revolutionary tool for making house hunting easier and more thorough,” said Kristen Crabtree.

Consumers can get Kristen’s mobile real estate search on their cell phone by visiting http://mobile.smarteragent.com/c21/kristencrabtree for easy instructions or by texting KRISTEN to 87778 to receive a text message with a link to download the mobile real estate application.

Smarter Agent is available as a fully downloadable application on hundreds of devices across Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. A premium mobile web version is also available on 95% of cell phones. The fully downloadable application is free to download on Sprint devices, BlackBerry devices, the iPhone, and Google's Android G-1. The premium mobile web version is free to access.

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About Kristen Crabtree
Kristen Crabtree has been working in San Luis Obispo selling real estate for the last 4 years. She specializes in Oceanfront, Ocean View, and Acreage Estates, but naturally sells other properties as well. She has won the Diamond Award through Century 21 for high sales volume, and is recognized as a top agent throughout the county.

About Smarter Agent
Smarter Agent® creates mobile, location-aware (such as GPS) search applications that help consumers and professionals learn about, interact and transact with the world around them as never before possible. Smarter Agent invented and patented mobile, location-triggered real estate search and is now the largest mobile real estate portal in the world. Smarter Agent represents the first mass commercialization of a mobile application in the United States. Its reach includes premium downloadable applications with all major carriers, as well as access from all phones, operating systems and formats. CTIA, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, named Smarter Agent the Winner in its Emerging Technology Awards LBS/GPS category.

I just found a home for sale in Grover Beach that is an excellent value/investment. It is one and a half blocks from the beach and has fantastic ocean views from the upstairs. It also has granite counters and a nice yard with a coy pond...It is bank owned so there are some fixtures and appliances that have been removed, but nonetheless it is a great value. It is priced in the mid $300K range. If you are interested in seeing it, let me know. It will probably sell fast, so don't wait too long!

Are the best values in Short Sales and Foreclosures/REOs?

A lot of people think that the "deals" to be made are in foreclosures and short sales. What they don't realized is that many of these sales go for asking or over, and may not represent the best values. Considering that most REOs or short sales have substantial damage done to the homes, the amount of money you save off of it being bank-owned or bank-involved is often negated by the impending work that needs to be done to them to bring them up to move-in standards. 237 sales in the last 3 months in San Luis Obispo County were either short sales or REOs. REOs are selling for 99.8% of their list price, on average. In some cases, they are selling for as much as 125% of their list price. Short sales (90 of them in the last 3 months) are selling for 96.4% of their list price. In one case, a home went for 205% of asking price. On the other hand, 322 sales in SLO county over the last 3 months were NOT short sales or REOs. Of the properties listed for 540K or less, they sold for 96% of list price. Of those sales about $540K, they sold for an average of 92.4% of the list price. So, actually, the homes in the "higher" price ranges that are not foreclosures or short sales are selling for quite a bit less than those that are foreclosures/short sales in lower price ranges. So where do YOU think the best values are?!