While I use many of the online tools to make decisions, that does not mean I accept something just because someone says it is so. And that is not just information taken from the reviews. You may proclaim your reviews to be trustworthy, but in truth, I am the one that will be determining if I find them trustworthy. Your say-so counts for zilch at this point; trust is something you have to establish. And while "we are planning to be extremely strict about which reviews get posted to the site." is a sound byte that is intended to inspire confidence, it leaves me wondering whether your criteria for weeding would align with mine, or cause the results to skew the way you determined they should be over how I would rank priorities. When I am doing research on business and services, I read everything. Then I weed out what I think is bogus or not a priority, and evaluate what remains. So the stricter you are with removing what you determine to be unhelpful, the less helpful your site might actually become IMO. That said, being able to separate by filters could be very a useful tool. But I might use it differently than you seem to envision. For example, it sounded as if you think days on market information would provide me with the names of agents that sell homes quickly. Frankly, that information may just provide a list of agents that under-priced the homes for quicker sales, or didn't have clients that refused to lower their asking price. You may provide the info--but I am still going to interpret that information how I see fit. Granted, many site users will not look beyond the face value statistics. Cannot say I am sorry you have gone the non-star rating route. It is a pain weeding through one-star reviews that evaluate Windows 8 rather than the computer for a computer review, for example-- (fresh in my mind from my research yesterday lol). But I am curious what you may have set up in its stead. Good luck with your new site.

"“There are no bad guys in all this,” Goldman said of Carlyle and Plaza del Rey. “When I see people saying ‘It’s really expensive for me,’ I say if you’re not working in high tech, which requires you to be here, why are you here? If you’re here, you’re making a decision every minute you’re here that the cost of being here is worth it.” what an incredible idiotic thing to say. what if you feed the ones who work in high tech, teach their kids, nurse the sick and the elderly? A city can't exist if it's populated only by X people. It needs the whole alphabet array of folks functioning properly you know the numerous strikes of different unions in Jerusalem where I lived for many years showed me who's the really more important to the infrastructure-and you'd never tell. teachers-can go on strikes until everybody's blue( which they do. lol). nurses..reach agreements a bit faster. still might take a couple of weeks. i remember them being on strike even longer once. doctors-goes faster with them than with nurses city bus drivers-couple days and their requirements are met waste management? all it took was several hours of not picking the trash ..in 35 C heat. they were all set by the evening of that very day lol thank you for sharing that article..and I read each and every response with great interest here in Southern OC young families can be outbid for months in a row on the most affordable homes in 400s-500s and such..usually these will be small attached condos in okay parts of the cities with okay schools, nothing remotely fab. New construction-no lot, stupid layout, probably costs like our remodeled fixer upper( maybe including the cost of remodel)..tons of association fees, and I'm not even sure what these associations do Our condo we sold-yeah they were PITA sometimes with their constant repairs maintenance and beautifying..but on the other hand they did repair maintained and beautified:) (except for a big miss when they decided to paint exteriors a new color. without consulting me ahahaa. or anybody for that matter) The rental for my MIL is already approaching 2K for a tiny one bedroom apartment, built in 60s, nothing to look at, the complex looks like my life lol, maintained but not updated in any way, very basic, laundry outside(and you need to pay for it. the nerve of these people)..the only good thing about it is its location-close proximity to us, to shops, library, parks..especially to one of the parks that she loves that's several steps away. Gives her some independence, us-some peace of mind knowing that we can be there in 2 min pick her up for whatever, and she has her room in our place if needed. Still I remember coming here from Stamford CT where we lived, on and off, for seven years altogether, and being somewhat pleasantly surprised by the prices:) It was 2010. (some cities in CT are very upscale and look that part but Stamford even though it's right there surrounded by them, could use..I don't know..could use something LOL. Some revolutionary thought. Like, clean the damn ice in the winter?)

After some thought and soul searching this evening, I decided to paint a color that I love while also showing respect for the Victorian style (and will fit in with the neighborhood). I love how you worded it @liasch "goodbye gift" to the home. I need to rethink my strategy but I will say that I've learned a lot about color, architecture, and most importantly exploring the creativity that you all shared with me. Where should I go from here? Should I create a new post? Should I include all the house colors around me? When looking for a professional designer for services, what are some questions I should ask so I know I won't get scammed or be disappointed? Thank you everyone who contributed to this discussion. I've learned a lot here!

Well, I will admit that it's a first world problem, but it still hurts......we've been house hunting for well over a year. Trying to downsize. Housing stock in our area is very tight, and it's a solidly middle class area. We didn't win bidding wars multiple times, so we're still in the market. But, over the past few months, our too big and too fancy home has started to decrease in value at a much quicker rate than our target properties. Meanwhile, interest rates are shooting up, so when we do find a home, the mortgage will be much more expensive if we need one, which, given the declining value of larger homes in our area, we might. Again, first world problem. We have a roof over our heads. We can pay the bills. But it hurts to be stuck in a home we wish we could get out of...and if we can get out of it, it hurts to take a financial hit to do so. Glad we're not too close to retirement....if we were, and downsizing was a big part of the game plan, retirement might be put on hold. I really feel for potential first time buyers too....the craziness of the last two years, and now the interest rate increases mean more people are stuck renting. We were burned during the 2008 crash, so I know renting is not necessarily a bad thing, but so many are having to put off ownership which has a lot of value beyond just building equity.