From my email:
The bank has chosen 2 offers to move forward with. They are in the middle of the countering process. If something does happen with any of those, then I will place yours as backup along with the other 16 offers.
Emphasis added — alas.
Category: Real Estate (page 63 of 266)
Just because you’ve found yourself in a position to quit your day job, and sail into the sunset, should you?
If we assume you’re financially set and your Purposeful Plan has found the cool end of the rainbow, what will you do? So many of us use artificial rest stops in our lives as an excuse to do one thing or another.
My dad sat down one weekend and set a business goal for himself with a 10 year time period for its accomplishment. Big problem. He was one of those guys born with only one gear — overdrive. For nearly five straight years he worked with less than a total (not counting a few sick days here and there) of 30 days off.
He was definitely a thinker, but once he believed he’d figured something out, either lead the way, follow, or get mowed down, ‘cuz he was gonna get to Point B. His motto was given to him by his sixth grade teacher when he pointed his finger at 11 year old Dad and said, “Don’t make excuses Brown, make good!” And he did. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and at least for Dad the problem was simple.
He never seemed to ask himself about life after achieving a goal. Like so many investors who read books and buy videos to learn how to buy investment property, he never asked a crucial question, much less come up with the answer.
Then what?
Just like buying real estate investments — anyone can buy something. Is it the right something? If so, and it rises in value — then what? Uh oh. Planning for retirement begs the ‘then what?’ question like a puppy happily wagging his tail who won’t go away. Figure out what your ‘then what?’ is and you’ll be way ahead of the game.
There was the story he told me about having some drinks after work one evening with some friends. They got to talking about business, as they all owned their own real estate firms. Before he knew what was happening, the conversation had veered sharply into Read more
by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
If you’ve wondered where that inflation was, you might start seeing signs of it today. Economic data released today are a great example of why inflation is a monetary consequence and not an economic one:
New York metro manufacturing activity slowed WAY less than expected:
Factories in the New York region unexpectedly expanded at the slowest pace in five months in December, indicating manufacturing may provide less of a thrust for the economy in coming months.
Wholesale prices jumped WAY more than expected:
The 1.8 percent increase in prices paid to factories, farmers and other producers was more than twice as large as anticipated and followed a 0.3 percent gain in October, according to Labor Department data released today in Washington. Excluding food and fuel, so-called core prices also exceeded the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Industrial production rose a tad, mostly from exports which may be a consequence of a weaker dollar :
Manufacturers are benefiting from rising demand overseas as the global economy recovers from the worst slump since World War II. A 12 percent drop in the value of the dollar from a four- year high on March 3 against its major trading partners is making American goods more competitive. Exports have risen for six consecutive months since reaching a three-year low in April.
What’s this all mean? It could very well mean that all this cheap money is starting to work its way into the economy…from the producers’ side. If those producers can’t pass along the higher prices to the consumer, because of a paradigm shift in consumer demand, we’re going to see a lot more business failures. That could lead to higher unemployment.
OR…it could mean something much worse; it could mean the feared currency collapse is underway.
Art Laffer once suggested that America’s “great export is our monetary policy” (VIDEO). Since that utterance to Peter Schiff, Laffer’s written a book admonishing the Government for the very strategy he endorsed. Laffer’s lost credibility aside, it is instructional to note that we, as a Nation, have become overly reliant on foreign capital. It looks like that party could be over. If Read more
All right: So: Let’s start in the middle.
First, we have four cell phones among the two of us. We have the two spares in case we need to put a phone in the pocket of a subcontractor. We keep a close eye on the folks who work with us, but we don’t ever want for our people to be without a lifeline.
Even so, the phones we actually use are the iPhones. It seems plausible to me that I may add a Droid and a Pre in 2010, both of them to keep any eye on what else can be done. But the iPhone app universe is exploding like the universe of time, space, mass and energy, and it seems reasonable to me that that the iPhone will be driving cell phone/pocket computer/etc. innovation for the foreseeable future.
Just in recent days, the appworld has added live video streaming and real-time credit card processing, and my thinking is that there are a lot of as yet undisclosed tricks in the iPhone developers’ APIs. In other words, I suspect that Apple has been holding back on the iPhone’s feature set to kill competitive features as they’re aborning, nipping every supposed incipient iPhone-killer in the bud.
I realized last night that I want for my laptop (a MacBook Pro) and my desktop computer (an iMac) to be the same one computer. Does that make sense? I want for those two computers to be cloned and continuously-syncing instances of the same one database of files. And I want for my iPhone to be a moon of that doubled planetary system.
This is singularity thinking: One way that human beings could leap to the next level of our evolution is by moving into computing hardware. The philosophy of all this is brain-breaking: Hardware geeks insist that the human mind must be a finite-state machine, while everyone with an introspective consciousness acts reflexively upon a seemingly undoubted belief in free will.
That’s a problem we’ll have to deal with on the way to the singularity. Meanwhile, a software instance of “you” could be cloned to live on as many hardware devices Read more
Don’t let anyone tell you that I never say anything good about ActiveRain. I saw a passing note yesterday about Ustream.com’s new iPhone app, but I ignored it in the crush of business. But this morning there was a post about the Ustream client in ActiveRain’s daily spamletter, and that led me to download the app.
What does it do?
Live video streaming from any iPhone 3G or 3GS. No kidding. Ustream quality, of course, compounded by the cheesy little lens on the iPhone, all compounded by WiFi or 3G transmission speeds. But still…
Live video streaming from your phone…
Practical applications?
Well, for one thing, Rodney King now has nothing to fear. Abusive cops are a thing of the past, and I would love to see a Ustream/YouTube channel devoted to abusive government functionaries everywhere. Especially in Iran, by the way, and I can’t think of a better antidote to bad behavior everywhere than instantaneous, live, streaming video for all the world to see.
But what about real estate applications?
Don’t throw away that video camera. It’s still Ustream, after all. But when you’re doing a home inspection for an out-of-state buyer, a live video conference with the inspector may be just the ticket. With a second phone, the client and the inspector can talk as you are shooting live video of the repair issues. Is that more sizzle than steak? I say it’s good salesmanship.
Are there other uses you can think of in your day-to-day real estate work? I’m never a big booster of new-for-the-sake-of-being-new. Mission-critical is all that ever matters to me in judging a new tool or idea. But I’m thinking that live or easily-recorded lo-rez video might serve a host of mission-critical functions.
Two (bad) videos as examples, as I learn to play with this new tool:
First, a bad demo recorded to the phone, then uploaded to Ustream.
Second, a live stream saved directly from Ustream.
In both cases, the iPhone shut off on me. To make this software work, you will have to change your auto shut-off setting in the main iPhone preference app. Then you have to remember to switch it back — or Read more
Just a real quick look at the Panasonic Lumix ZR1, in use with the dogs this week as a real estate camera. When I get time, I’ll do some side-by-side comparisons. This is just a quick look at some photos and a demo movie.
First some pix:
These are good, nice and wide, nice and bright. No distortion on the straight lines. A little bit of lens flare, but this ain’t Life magazine.
Here’s a huge benefit: Even with the flash on, the ZR1 is fast. Refresh time is maybe two seconds, essentially no delay at all. The auto-focus/auto-exposure systems need a little time to do their calculations, so it’s possible to rush the camera. But a wide lens has a huge depth of focus, so it’s hard to get into real trouble.
The movie is not so pleasing. The wide lens is great, but the AF/AE issue is much more serious on-the-fly. I don’t like house videos, anyway, but, if you plan to do them with the ZR1, you need to make sure you have a lot of light.
Here’s the video as recompressed by YouTube:
Not great. The original is better. You can see it by clicking “Play in Popup” in the links at the bottom of the post.
My one complaint with the camera, so far, is that it’s so tiny. I have big hands, so it’s taking some getting used to. But it’s wicked easy to get a lot of very good photos very quickly. And the 25mm lens is very, very wide for a point-and-shoot camera.
Further thoughts when I’ve had more time to play.
Here below is my take on a possible action plan for any mid to large sized real estate brokerage that would like to increase local market share by drastically enhancing its brand visibility and recruiting more agents to its team.
At the core of this plan is the creation of a company standard “Agent Lead Generation Package.”
The thinking here is that as the brokerage works to serve (and mandate) the lead generation efforts of its agents, it’ll concurrently establish it’s standing as the most omnipresent, technically progressive, office in its market area.
Broker Market Domination Action Plan
- Establish a wide multi-author, wordpress based blogsite designed to serve as the cornerstone of your overall lead generation system. This site will double as a regional web based “newspaper” of sorts and will likely have eventual value as such. Key components of this site should include a video gallery page, idx integration, an evolvoing google map and individual agent pages that stream agent created content and feature unique lead capture offers for each agent.
- Establish Company Social Media Profiles – A Facebook page, Twitter account, and Youtube account. Set them each to automatically interact with the main site, with new content being syndicated and shared between all components. Any content posted to the main site will land on Facebook and Twitter, with links calling eyeballs there back to the main site. Any videos uploaded to Youtube will land on the video gallery page and if properly titled and tagged in Youtube they should provide a stream of traffic for years to come.
- Establish a Content Creation Schedule for Each Member of the Team. Make it a company mandate that everyone must contribute to the site on a regular basis. This includes ownership, management, administrative staff, and all agent partners. Assign each team member a themed piece of content that they are responsible for on a weekly basis. Figure out a way to punish those who don’t comply, and to reward those who do. Example – You could charge each agent who doesn’t contribute content a $50 penalty that will be used to hire Read more
Regardless of what many of us prefer to believe, our day to day effectiveness has much to do with when our days begin and end. Yeah, yeah, I know, Captain Obvious etc. With one eight month exception, when it’s been my choice, I’ve not been an early riser. Ever notice that those who wake up later and stay up past midnight don’t pester the livin’ crap out of you about the merits of their choice? Don’t feel like gettin’ in a word edgewise for awhile? Ask anyone with a rooster fetish about the merits espoused by their dawn worshiping cult, and you may remain silent for the duration.
My theory has always been grounded in the empirical. As long as you’re not showin’ up for work late, then leavin’ early to make up for it, your 8-12 hours a day are still 8-12 hours a day. Kinda profound, don’t ya think? Still, the early morning crowers piously insist their hours are more productive than those beginning and ending later. They utter those words framed in a tone dripping with the unspoken accusation of ‘slacker’!
Is the listing you just took, or the loan you just closed worth any more or less based upon when you get up and go to bed? Apparently so to many.
I wanted to find out first hand. If one of our country’s most respected forefathers gave the idea legs enough to last for over a couple centuries, what was the harm?
Made a deal with myself to rise at 6 AM for the entire month of November. It’s been an eye opener, as I’ve learned Ben Franklin was full of what comes out of the south end of a northbound bull. Well, maybe not totally. I am gettin’ more done by 9 due to all the obvious reasons provided by being up and more or less not comatose before the #$%&^in’ sun is up. My waking hours haven’t really changed much though, which is counterintuitive to what all the lying bastards have been tellin’ us for centuries.
My kingdom for somebody to rationally explain the difference Read more
if Arthur Laffer can have a curve for taxes that defies the static revenue generation models in use at the time and since, then I can have one for social media. (Hat tip to my friend Scott Hack at Selling Greater Louisville for starting me down this road…)
The true reach and impact of a given social media aite has a lifecycle. A site starts as an ineffective blob and the sites promoters must somehow inspire a LOT of people to waste a LOT of time building it up. **cough**Twitter**cough** As they do it gains traction, but unless it hits “critical mass”, a point at which it is a household word and EVERYONE is using it and will not stop using it, then it will decline. **cough**Myspace**cough**
For business purposes, since we are trying to maximize our ROI, my thought is that we only should spend time on those social media sites with enough RELEVANT traffic to warrant us spending our time on them. (Right now that is likely ONLY to be Facebook and then only where we can connect with our friends from the past effeciently and possibly get deals from them.
Twitter, for all of its rabid followers is now IN MY OPINION in decline.
**Eric ducks a tomato and few folks from NAR who are just now learning to spell the words “social media” (grin)**
How do I know? The aforementioned Scott Hack told me last week that he was noticing that more and more twitterers are doing less and less tweets. He is an avid twitterer. So I took it upon my self to do my own marketing research over Thanksgiving.
Of the many people in their 20s and 30s that I talked to, who were on Twitter, most (75%) planned on spending less time there in the coming year.Interesting to note that they STILL INTEND TO USE FACEBOOK.
So then I went to the younger crowd (read: Nephews and nieces) Are they getting on Twitter? No, No and
When I talk to the 35 to 45 year old crowd, they Read more
My friend Andrew Breese asked me to go through my own history, in light of both the real estate boom and the bust, detailing where I was wrong and where I was right.
Very big job, and it would be a long essay to write, so I’ve elected to go through it in video instead.
Click on the graphic below to watch the video.
When presented with an ultimatum my first inclination has always been to go for the ‘or else’ end of the proposition— a defiant tendency that was pointed out to me by more than a few black-hooded figures in charge of my early catechism. This probably explains the abnormally high pain threshold I lug around to this very day. (Go ahead, smack me across the knuckles with a ruler the next time we’re doing math together and see for yourself how little I seem to care.) I’m convinced this emotional dereliction has to something do with a mutated gene strand that skipped a few low risk taking generations in my inherent DNA. Clearly, I was breech born under a bad moon. I am a Virgo, they say, but not by much.
In the late 1960s, when the Age of Aquarius was recruiting the deflowered masses of my wayward generation, I found myself stalled, hesitant to beam up to the mothership. Manned with my own back alley (hearsay, to be sure) knowledge of that dirtiest of deeds, I actually did the arithmetic and concluded that my parents must have lost the rhythm on, or around, Thanksgiving Dinner, 1955. Born in the late afternoon on August 23rd the following leap year (and exactly three complete trimesters to the dinner bell hour later), I concluded that had my mother only pushed a little harder during labor, I could have been a Leo. But then again, if everyone hadn’t started drinking Cold Duck in the morning exactly nine months earlier, I probably wouldn’t have been…. at all.
So hence, I mentally celebrate—in my sick, sick head—two birthdays every year: The day of my most probable, mathematically correct Conception (Thanksgiving dinner, badda-bing), and…. August 23rd, that so-called celestial cusp I barely missed by some late breaking water. When someone asks me what astrological ‘sign’ I am, I simply spew out my theory as posed above… and they usually go away. It’s my own ultimatum of sorts, I suppose, to anyone who tries to get too close. After all, I did come out feet first and tend to veer a Read more
Hello Bloodhoundbloggers.. It’s been almost a year since my last post and I’m feeling a little out of touch with the pulse of the market, which is the heart of this site. Since my last post, I’ve been involved in cell tower development in Las Vegas as a build-to-suit vendor for a wireless carrier, having started my company almost a year ago this month (And you thought the residential market was tough). Things are progressing in a positive direction although there is still more work to be done, but what spurred my writing muse (you can have her Geno when I’m done here) was a little app I bought for my iPhone last week.
Normally, I’m more interested in the free apps geared towards saving me time in one way or another, but I must admit that I do enjoy playing NFL Madden 10 when I’m sitting in a zoning hearing. But as I found this one (www.zosh.com) – Video click here – I past over the $2.99 without a thought. Let me summarize what it does and how I use it:
I receive numerous proposals and eFax’es on my iPhone as a PDF file (the app only works with PDF files) that require my signature. Some of them are minor, but necessary documents that need my approval when I’m on the road, in an airport or at a hearing (I have a laptop but don’t always have access to a printer or WiFi).. then I found this app.. The document comes to my inbox on the iPhone.. I forward it to mydocs@zosh.com (after you setup an account on the iPhone – make sure that you use the email address that you have defaulted on your iPhone as your login – makes it easier) and the forwarded PDF file will show up in the list of files once you open the app.
Once Zosh is opened, find the file that you just emailed to zosh.com and open it. Now you can insert a signature, text or date. With the signature, you tap on the location of the document where you want to sign and a Read more
I will be on KJZZ radio (91.5 FM) in Phoenix tomorrow from 11:30 am to Noon. I’ll be talking about the state of the real estate market, the impact of the real estate tax credit and the flow of international buyers into the Phoenix market.
I think there will be an MP3 available, afterward, but you can stream KJZZ by clicking on this link.
Further notice: Click here for a link to the broadcast.
“If your car keys are with you, your camera should be with you.” That’s one of the mantras I preach at Realtors when I speak in public. The language of real estate is photography, and you cannot do your job properly if you can’t communicate what you’re seeing to your clients.
Having a camera along solves a multitude of dilemmas. I see a lot of houses for out of state buyers, so the web sites I build for them can provide invaluable details about candidate homes. But there are all kinds of other benefits to always having a camera with you when you’re out of the office: Documenting benefits and drawbacks of specific neighborhoods, capturing on-the-spot images of red flag issues before the inspector transmits his report, etc.
“But,” you may be be straining to expostulate, “my phone has a camera.” Believe me, I know. I see its output in the MLS way too often. Your phone has a bad camera, with a cheesy little lens — its focal length much too long for real estate — and a cheesy little image size. Someday phone cameras may be adequate for day-to-day real estate work, but that day is not today.
We have a Kodak Digital SLR for listings and other high-end work, but, until lately, we have each carried a Fujifilm Finepix E500 for everyday photos. This was a reasonable price/performance compromise when we got them. They’re light in weight and they’re powered by AA batteries, so there was never any threat of running out of juice. The lens is only 28mm at its widest, which is adequate but not ideal. But those cameras were workhorses. Cathleen and I both rolled them over, call it around 15,000 photos each over the past four years.
But all things come to an end. Cathy lost her Finepix recently, and mine is exhibiting the kind of noisome behavior that argues that it’s about to fail permanently.
Time to go shopping. I’ve been following the Panasonic Lumix line of point-and-shoot digital cameras since I first heard about them in a post by Jeff Turner, a long time ago. I got Read more