Category: Real Estate (page 75 of 266)

May 7, 2009

I received the Nobel Prize in Real Estate Today!

by Ira Serkes

Realtor, Tech Connoisseur

Sorry if I’ve been a bit punchy – I think there’s a 9 hour time difference between Stockholm and Berkeley.. and those guys call on their schedule, so they woke me up in the middle of the night. This is a picture of my neighbor Albert, and he plays a role in the story … keep reading on.

The phone call came early this morning!

I’d heard the rumors, but was thrilled to find out that I received the 2009 Nobel Prize for Real Estate!

It was awarded for two different discoveries:

The Quantum Theory Of Home Buying and
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Real Estate

Quantum Theory
After a buyer writes an offer on a home, they either get the house… or they don’t get the house – there is no other state

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
The act of writing an offer on a home changes the home’s final sales price… even if you’re uncertain as to what the other offers are.

If there are multiple offers on a home, and you write a low priced offer, your probability of getting the home is very low. You affect the outcome, because someone who really wants the home will raise their bid and the home sells for a higher price!

And how does Albert Ghiorso fit into the quest for my Unified Real Estate Database Field Theory of Data Integration? He’s my inspiration.

Albert, one of our 90-something year spry neighbors, was co-discoverer of more elements than any other person in the galaxy! Albert’s Wikipedia entry lists the following elements:

* Americium ca. 1945 (element 95)
* Curium in 1944 (element 96)
* Berkelium in 1949 (element 97)
* Californium in 1950 (element 98)
* Einsteinium in 1952 (element 99)
* Fermium in 1953 (element 100)
* Mendelevium in 1955 (element 101)
* Nobelium in 1958-59 (element 102)
* Lawrencium in 1961 (element 103)
* Rutherfordium in 1969 (element 104)
* Dubnium in 1970 (element 105)
* Seaborgium in 1974 (element 106)

Cogito Ergo Blogo in Berkelium Californium Americium

Degrees Of Separation
I looked at the San Francisco Chronicle’s list of Bay Area Nobel Prize winners, and realized I was one or two degrees of separation from several…. one neighbor works with someone who won the award in Read more

May 7, 2009

My favorite Web Page Not Found Error Code

by Ira Serkes

Realtor, Tech Connoisseur

It’s an “Only In Berkeley Code“

May 7, 2009

BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix 2009 – The Movie

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

A celebration of BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix 2009.

May 7, 2009

Squeeze more Google SEO Juice from your photos & video

by Ira Serkes

Realtor, Tech Connoisseur

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

True, but if you want Google to wake up and smell the roses (or in my case, espresso).. you need to give them what they want.
Some documents need time stamps – yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss-what-it-is.xxx implicitly sorts in chronological order. 24 is too intense for me, but a great way to time stamp.

Most articles are best renamed with keywords. When we travelled to London, I created a PDF of the London Tube, emailed it to my iPhone .Mac account, and had a nice bright scalable map easy to read on my iPhone in dark, cold and wet London.
Here’s the file name I used:

uk_london_tube_map.pdf

I gives me everything I need to find the file on my computer. Being a digital kind of guy, I use the 2 letter International Internet Codes or State Code as a prefix.

th_bangkok_wat_pho_reclining_buddha_01.jpg

Back in ancient times (i.e. before taking the Bloodhound Unchained class last week), I would have used a more cryptic code, but Greg’s engenu batch creates ALT tags from the file name, so all my file names will now have embedded keywords for SEO juice.

th_bk_wp_reclining_bdh_01.jpg
But the bits are free.. no extra charge for using more of them…though I would like someone to tell me if I need to stay within an XXX character limit.

Adobe Bridge (Mac & Windows) is superb for organizing and renaming photos and movies.

May 7, 2009

Paper is so 20th Century – Think Bits, not Atoms

by Ira Serkes

Realtor, Tech Connoisseur

More and more I simply create Adobe Acrobat files rather than print articles onto …. paper.

I love reading the New York Times .. Sunday print editions… and literally bookmark the page.

Then go to nytimes.com, find the article, use the full version of Adobe Acrobat to “Create PDF from Web Page”. I rename the page and save it.

By using Acrobat to create the PDF, the link are all active, the page is scalable (I can zoom in), and the PDF almost always looks exactly like the web page.

May 6, 2009

Meet the new dogs: Six new Bloodhounds to fill out the pack

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

We added six new BloodhoundBlog contributors last Friday at BloodhoundBlog Unchained. Actually, we added seven, but Dave Smith of the Real Estate Blog Lab has elected to take a pass for now to free up time for other projects.

It’s no accident that all of these folks are coming out of Unchained. A year ago, BloodhoundBlog Unchained was something that we did. By now, it’s something that we are. The blog and the events are conjoined, like a two-headed Cerberus, and each generates content and cultivates talent for the other.

One of the things we do here, one of the things we’ve always tried to do, is to make stars of our contributors. In a world without middle-men, the engaging expression of expertise should earn a writer a cachet of authority, and that authority should influence larger and larger audiences. We have built a big megaphone for talking to real estate professionals, and we want to make that megaphone available to the most creative and talented people we can find.

So: Here are the new dogs. I hope you’ll make them feel welcome.

It would be an understatement to say that Ira Serkes was the stand-out student at BloodhoundBlog Unchained. The man is a geyser of fascinating real estate marketing ideas, which he shares with an unrestrained delight. Ira and his wife Carol are Realtors in Berkeley, California. Ira co-authored “Get the Best Deal When Selling Your Home — SF Bay Area Edition” and Nolo Press’s best-selling book “How to Buy a House in California.”

Scott Cowan is a long-time friend of BloodhoundBlog. He organized our invasion of Seattle in February, and, while we were there, he signed on to work as a staffer for BloodhoundBlog in Phoenix. That is, he and Brad Coy served admirably as the Vice Presidents in Charge of Everything Else. Scott sells classic homes in the Tacoma, Gig Harbor, and the Puyallup areas of Washington State. If you want to make his day, ask him about the $8,000 home-buyer credit.

Kerry Melcher may be the most unlikeliest contributor to a weblog that has always endeavored to bring you unlikely contributors. Kerry is Read more

May 5, 2009

The Secret Of Successful Real Estate Career is summarized in this post

by Ira Serkes

Realtor, Tech Connoisseur

I’ve done extensive non-linear multi-variable regression analysis on sales in 17 different market areas across the United States.

Rather than provide you all the gory details, I’ll simply summarize the results.

In EVERY market, good and bad, city and resort, one thing was true.

100% of the closings involved a buyer.

So… rather than spending most of your resources (time and money) searching out sellers, build a strong Buyer Brokerage practice.

John Pinto of San Jose taught me a lot about working with buyers, so this post it dedicated to him.

I’ll be talking more about buyers from time to time… what I’d like to learn is what works for you.

May 5, 2009

Wanna Help SEO My 404? – CentralPaLiving.Com/404LotsaListingLeads

by Ryan Hartman

Retechulous...

I’ve been sitting on this idea for probably about a year now, and figured Unchained was the appropriate place to let it rip. So for those of you that were there, you know where I’m going with this.

If you weren’t in Phoenix, please take a minute to visit Centralpaliving.Com/NoOneElseInYourMarketWillDoThisSoDontWorryAboutSharingItWithTheWorld

What you’ll see is basically one of the better real estate marketing ideas I’ve ever had and the latest addition to the CentralPaLiving project.

Once you get to the page, you might get the urge to thank me? Maybe you can do so by hitting CentralPaLiving.Com up with a juicy link from your own 404? Maybe do something like http://centralpaliving.com/(insertyournameorurlhere) so that you pop up when I do a google “links:” query?

Thanks in advance for your thanks 🙂 And thanks also to all the folks on the Scenius in Phoenix who helped turn a pretty good idea into the turbocharged video based squeeze page monster that it is now!

Bonus! — A Screencast Demonstrating This Thing In Action!

Free online screencasting tool

May 5, 2009

Reflecting (very) briefly on the Phoenix real estate market: “I got my job through the New York Times”

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Last Tuesday, while racing around doing real estate work and preparing for BloodhoundBlog Unchained, I was interviewed by the New York Times about the Phoenix real estate market.

I’ve been interviewed a zillion times before, and it’s cool and fun and it means absolutely nothing. I got picked because of this article, from my column in the Arizona Republic. I spoke to the reporter for 45 minutes on the phone, and about twelve of my words made it into the newspaper.

Okayfine. That’s the way it works. I’m just waxed fruit in these tableaux and I know it.

But here’s the cool part: Yesterday I got a call from a potential client about the article. Never happened before. Real estate investor from Canada looking to balance his risk by picking up some lender-owned homes in Phoenix.

As a marketing strategy, talking to reporters is probably less productive than handing out business cards in the supermarket parking lot, but serendipity is where you find it.

Further notice: Today I was interviewed by MacLean’s magazine about Canadians buying real estate in Phoenix. The reporter found me where? In the New York Times. Clearly there is a difference…

May 4, 2009

A video postcard from Unchained in Phoenix

by Brad Coy

Realtor, Urban Jedi

Paybacks a mutha, so be careful what you ask for. I opened up the MacBook and asked the gang to do a video postcard for Teri Lussier because she could not make it. Much to my surprise, some bloodhounds don’t forget. Beyond that we get a look at the scenius in action and another sneak peak at some more video footage to come from Unchained in Phoenix. Enjoy, and don’t get too many ideas. I made a promise that this factotum/guest speaker/Omega will be performing Blake from Glenngary Glenn Ross next time we meet up.

Featuring Eric Blackwell with the Omegas working on SEO and Ryan Hartman exploring Gonzo Marketing with the Alphas.

May 3, 2009

Facebook Quizzes For Real Estate Marketers

by Brian Brady

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Facebook quizzes might be a darned good tool for real estate agents. You know what I’m talking about, right? Facebook quizzes are those independent applications that ask you 5-10 questions and tell you who you were in a past life, what your inner animal is, and what sort of American accent you might have. I take them when I’m surfing Facebook in the middle of the night.

I got hit with a black pearl when demonstrating Facebook, at BloodhoundBlog Unchained, and I saw Brad Coy’s profile. Brad took the quiz “Which San Francisco Neighborhood Are You?” and it posted to his Facebook Wall. His result inspired a conversation from me.

ME: “Brad, What’s up with The Mission District? ”

BRAD: “Oh, I don’t know, Brian. I was goofing around and that’s the neighborhood the quiz results picked for me”

ME: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it Brad but what’s up with The Mission District?

BRAD: I’m not following you.

ME: I don’t know much about San Francisco and I haven’t heard a lot about The Mission District. Is this a potential gentrification neighborhood?

It didn’t hit me until my Unchained Omega Session; Facebook quizzes, long held to be a novelty, could start the right kind of conversations for real estate agents. I played around with one a few months ago and over 100 people took my quiz. The lightbulb went off for RuthAnn Macklin, a Virtual Real Estate Assistant and member of CyberProfessionals. RuthAnn figures that she can demonstrate the need for her services by pointing out how difficult it is to “go it alone” as a REALTOR, through a Facebook quiz.

“Which San Francisco Neighborhood Are You?” is a cute quiz BUT…it can start the right kind of conversations for Brad Coy.

Which North County Town Are You?” might be perfect for Don Reedy.
“Are You Really A Moonie?” might distinguish potential Moon Valley home buyers for Center City Phoenix agent Keri Melcher.
“Mo or Kan?” could help Cindy DiCianni, Kansas City Agent, determine which Kansas City suburb her clients might enjoy.
“Are you Chill Enough For Island Life?” could help Amelia Island Real Estate Agents, the Werlings.
Finally, imagine what newly-discovered Read more

May 2, 2009

Are you looking for a flinty-eyed steward to protect the value of real estate? Whatever you do, don’t turn to a banker!

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link):

If there’s one thing we can say we’ve learned from the housing bust, it’s this: The worst conceivable stewards of financial assets are bankers.

At every step of the real estate market’s retrenchment, the bankers have been right there, on the spot, ready to make precisely the wrong decision — days, weeks or even months late.

Can’t make your payments? Put the home up for sale. Will the bank honor an offer short of the amount owed? Maybe. Maybe in six weeks, maybe in six months. Will the buyer still be there when the bank finally responds? With prices declining by thousands of dollars a month?

So the bank has to foreclose on the home — at an imputed value far lower than it could have had from the short sale. And then it must list that home for sale at a still lower price.

But don’t waste your time looking for evidence of prudence or even simple greed in a lender-owned listing. The home will be filthy, with fixtures and smoke alarms missing. The kitchen range will have been stolen, thus to assure that the home is not accidentally sold to an FHA or VA buyer.

If the bank inadvertently approves a purchase contract for the home, it will do everything it can to avoid recouping even a tiny fraction of its losses. First the bank will attempt to savage the deal by completely rewriting the contract. And everyone involved in the process will be insanely overworked, so that even the simplest question will occasion a two- to five-day delay.

Absolutely nothing will be done to address even deal-killing defects. But because the decision chain is so convoluted, negotiations over problems will drag on for weeks or even months. That way, when the deal falls apart, as many do, the bank will be able to relist the house at an even lower price.

I wish I were making this up. I want to deride bankers as being clowns, but that’s unfair to the clowns. They produce wealth, rather than destroying it — and they dress better for work, Read more

May 1, 2009

BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix 2009: A quick wrap-up…

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

I don’t know how I’m still awake — and from moment to moment I’m not. But we wrapped up Unchained in Phoenix tonight, and I wanted to take a quick minute to salute everyone who was part of an amazing experience. Two fingers of Bushmills — more would be a waste. To all the dogs and to everyone who learned to howl like a Bloodhound this week, we are in your debt. This was by far the best Unchained event so far, and we are but begun. Per ardua, ad astra!

April 30, 2009