Archives (page 106 of 372)

November 20, 2009

About the TechnoGeek Cell Phone Debate

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

I love it when I’m able to read or witness geeks debating the finer points of TechnoGibberish. Seems most have never learned they’re in the <1% category about which most technology consumers couldn’t give less of a @#%&. 🙂

Though I harbor genuine and deep respect for those of you who’re able to help us TechTards, there are so few of them who actually DO help. It’s funny to watch, over time, as the vast majority of their ‘can’t miss’ predictions die ugly, without even an audible whimper from TechTards.

I bring this up in order to send you to a post I just read which has the most interestingly informing comment thread I’ve recently had the pleasure to read. I’d love to hear what the Bloodhound TechnoGeek posse has to say about the post, but am far more interested in hearing what they have to say about the comments.

For me, the comments were at times a revelation. I urge you to read every last comment — as I was riveted as various ‘sub-threads’ emerged. But then I’m just a TechTard, right?

Here’s the link — I and my fellow TechTards will be waiting to hear from you guys.

Much thanks in advance for your TechTake.

November 19, 2009

Another 25%? Ouch, that’s going to leave a mark…..

by Tom Vanderwell

Mortgage Officer

Okay, a couple of things that this chart assumes:

That from 1975 to 1999 was “normal” enough to indicate a statistical trend. I think the case could be made that it was.
That we’re going to eventually get back to that trend line. I think a case could be made that we will.
If both of those assumptions are indeed correct, then we’re heading into a scenario where we have quite an adjustment to go through in terms of a drop in peak housing values until we are back into range with that statistical trend.

What do you think? Tell me why you think he’s wrong……

Tom Vanderwell

Values Have Dropped Only 25% of the Fall Needed to Reach Trend «

PRICE TRENDS / WAR OF THE WORLDS (Part 4): Property owners nationwide have lost only one dollar for every four dollars they can ultimately expect to lose on their home.

The good news according to the leading data series issued by the United States government is that prices have only fallen 6 percent. If you are a homeowner, you are wealthier than you knew. The bad news is you still have three dollars to lose for every one dollar which has already been lost.

The total projected fall from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) “All Transactions Index”, which begins in 1975, shows a peak-to-trend fall of 27%. Since prices are 6% lower by this measure, prices must still fall an additional 23% from today for prices to revert to trend.

The assumption built into these estimates is that prices in the years 1975 to 1999 advanced at a typical rate. A trend line was generated to the present based upon that 25-year period. The chart depicts the divergence of the trend established from 1975 to 1999 and the actual prices recorded from 2000 to 2009.

The FHFA prediction of a total fall of 27% is far less than the total fall of between 49% to 60% predicted by Case-Shiller. Based upon the four data sets reviewed in the last few weeks (see summary below), we can estimate a total fall of between 27% to 60% from the bubble top to Read more

November 19, 2009

Motorola Droid: First Impressions

by Damon Chetson

Raleigh Criminal Lawyer

As I mentioned here earlier this week, I’ve been thinking about switching to a different network. Love the iPhone, but am completely unimpressed with AT&T’s network. So I went into a Verizon store to look at the Droid over the weekend, and then bought one after work at BestBuy on Monday.

I did the transaction at BestBuy because you get the rebate immediately, instead of having to cut off the label from the box and send it in to Verizon if you were to buy the phone at the Verizon store.

The phone itself is quite nice. If I hadn’t been spoiled on the iPhone, it would be the best phone I’ve played with or had. I’ve had a couple of Blackberries, used by wife’s Motorola Q. I haven’t used a recent Palm, so can’t compare it to that.

Verizon has a superior network. The call quality is night and day. The calls are crisp, the 3G network is fast, and phone calls have not been dropped in the past three two plus days. That’s a huge improvement over AT&T, which would’ve dropped at least 2 or 3 of those calls.

As for the phone: On the upside, the physical keyboard (in addition to a virtual keyboard), while not very good, is nice to have. The keyboard is too flat, so it makes finding the right keys hard. There are many free apps, and they’re pretty good quality. If you use Google and Gmail for your email, contacts, and calendar, the integration is seamless. Even Facebook contacts are properly synched. Google Voice works great, and because I’m now on a fast network, the call quality between Google Voice and the regular phone isn’t different.

I got the 16 gig version, but thankfully I can swap out the 16 gig SD card in the future for a 32 gig card if I ever want to expand the memory on the phone. If I bought an iPhone, I’d have to buy a whole new phone to increase the capacity. 32 gig SD cards now run at about $90 to $100, so they’re not cheap, but the Read more

November 17, 2009

Taking the Genius of Brian Brady to the Next Level: How to Pipe Linked In Network Updates Into Your Feed Reader

by Mark Green

Database Marketing Expert

In the spirit of my #1 Bloodhound Blog Unchained takeaway, here’s a 70% ready-to-roll video. Brian Brady was kind enough to teach me his brilliant way of leveraging Linked In to establish new relationships. I haven’t been executing the Brady Principles consistently enough. Check out a little something-something I stumbled upon (no pun intended) today:

Here are some related links if you’d like to learn more about Brian Brady’s Linked In techniques or Google Reader:

Brian Brady Training on Linked In (awesome webinar we recorded in March)

Google Reader vs. Twitter Lists (why I disagree with a recent article Scoble wrote vs. Google Reader)

Introduction to Google Reader (great article by Mark Madsen, fellow BHB contributor)

November 17, 2009

Further thoughts — mostly non-thoughts — on RPR

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Reacting to John Rowles’ post, Jim Duncan has been talking about the RPR idea for years, and I read a little more about it today, having been tipped over the weekend by Tom Johnson. My take: Yawn.

RPR is not the generals fighting the last war, but the war before that. Apparently, the NAR still believes that the added value of real estate representation comes from hoarding data. RPR is their attempt to put a new fence around the data, having let the last set of barriers fall to Realtor.com and to IDX.

It’s twice funny to me, because not only is that war already well won — by the consumer — so is the true last war, the Battle of the Realty.bots. After all of this chatter, none of this shit has turned out to mean anything in real life.

I mean nothing. I’m convinced by now that no one who does not actually represent buyers and sellers has any clue about what is going on in the real estate market. We don’t search for listings — our clients do — and our position is stronger than ever. We post our listings wherever we can — and our position is stronger than ever.

I’m no friend to any restraint or restriction on trade, but buying or selling a home is a lot more complicated than it was four years ago. Our clients don’t need flashy web sites, they need agents who know how to navigate the shoals of the transaction.

RPR, MLS, VOW, IDX — all of this goes away when we do away with the co-broke. In the mean time, it’s deck chairs on the Titanic, at best, one more dipshit time-wasting “tool” to mask sales-call reluctance.

Notes for the grunts on the ground:

1. Motivated buyers and sellers will not go through a middleman in the early phases of their search. This is 1974-style thinking from the NAR.

2. Motivated buyers and sellers don’t care how they found you. They care about what they found: Do you know your shit? Can you deliver the product? Is your word any good?

3. Whether or not the information you Read more

November 17, 2009

Mortgage Market Update on BlogTalk Radio

by Tony Gallegos

Mortgage Technologist

I believe many Bloodhound readers will find this weekly radio program hosted by David Lykken of value. On this weeks show, Alice Alvey, Joe Farr and Tony Gallegos provide the inside scoop and up-to-the-minute information regarding interest rates, loan programs and “hot” industry news related to the mortgage industry specifically addressing the following topics:

MBS and Market update
Inflationary concerns
Fed participation in secondary market
Legislative updates
Latest on RESPA and GFE…specifically addressing broker channel issues
Update on FHA broker approval (mini-eagle) process…what is expected
Credit risk…why underwriting is tightening and when is will contract

I hope you enjoy!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

November 17, 2009

Purposeful Living Is Living For Real

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Such a simple phrase, yet apparently so difficult to execute. Agreeing with myself on what my purposes are was at the same time a task easily accomplished, and reminiscent of a root canal. Once they’re established, any goal flowing from them will almost always be accomplished. The importance of having purpose in our lives can’t be overstated.

I learned about purpose by analogy. Purpose is a map — any destination on the map, if we choose to go there, is a goal. The reason goals aren’t achieved, the root cause, is because the goal’s ‘destination’ isn’t on any of the ‘maps’ of the person’s purposes. If your goal is to go to Canada, but none of your maps include that country, it’s highly unlikely you’ll find your way there.

Experts have devised several methods to help folks discover their purposes. Frankly, I’ve always shied away from the concept of ‘discovering’ a purpose, as I’ve always inferred that to mean it was always there, so not necessarily my choice. We can decide at any time to change our main purpose for existence. One of the extreme examples of this truth was the Biblical story of Paul. In the story he not only radically altered his purpose, but reversed it — becoming the world’s strongest advocate for what he’d previously did his utmost to destroy.

So understand, the excuse for not having a guiding purpose cuz ya can’t ‘discover’ it is lame beyond description. We all decide what our purpose in life is, whether it’s a proactive decision or not. Furthermore, having that purpose will not only cause goals to be far more easily achievable, but will generate the goals resonating with the purpose itself. Who’d a thunk?

I don’t advocate any particular method to decide your purpose. Some write down purposes ’till one hits home. Some go to a quiet place and meditate, some even consult experts from different disciplines. It doesn’t matter as long as it produces a purpose with which you’re both at peace and big time excited.

There’s very little in the world more powerful than a purpose driven goal — Read more

November 17, 2009

As RPR hits, NAR (finally) Concedes that Google isn’t a “Scraper”

by John Rowles

IDX Search Entrepreneur

get used to it

I attended the NAR convention in San Diego over the weekend and this banner caught my eye. It just seemed oddly Orwellian to me, as if NAR were subliminally planting the idea. As it turns out, that was not far from the truth.

The IDX rules have been updated to explicitly allow indexing by search engines, defeating the Indianapolis BoR’s attempt to use the old rules to prevent brokers and agents from using IDX data in SEO.

This time around, apparently, there was no parliamentary chicanery to delay the obvious. On the other hand, they did add an explicit opt-out for sellers who don’t want AVMs or third-party comments, or links to that content, associated with their listings.

It would be funny if it weren’t so frustrating: Obviously, they are aware that there is this technology called a “search engine” that makes it easy to find stuff, because they just endorsed a rule that acknowledges what the rest of the world figured out in 1995 — that search engines are useful.

Then they pivot and give sellers the right to censor information about their listings, but only on sites that use IDX data, meaning that those AVMs and third party comments are just a quick search away on sites like Zillow and Trulia. All this does is give people a reason to leave the broker or agent’s site to go and find the information they want on a site that is not bound by these idiotic rules.

Not that it will matter for much longer. With RPR, NAR itself is getting into the AVM game and, if you believe the nightmares of some local MLS directors, taking a concrete step towards a national MLS. If the reality matches the spin, they may be able to improve AVMs by adding information contributed by the membership, an idea they call the “Realtor Valuation Model”.

What’s missing is MLS data, at least for now. Done right, blending current and historical MLS data in with all the public data and combining that with an ability for brokers and agents to add their 2 cents would produce a much more accurate, and Read more

November 16, 2009

How can a flat and dusty bumpkintopia like Texas outgrow a paradise on earth like California?

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

A clip from a fascinating City Journal article on the differences in taxes and services among the states and how that affects growth:

If California doesn’t want to be Texas, it must find a way to be a better California. The easy thing about being Texas is that the government has a great deal of control over the part of its package deal that attracts consumer-voters—it must merely keep taxes low. California, on the other hand, must deliver on the high benefits promised in its sales pitch. It won’t be enough for its state and local governments to spend a lot of money; they have to spend it efficiently and effectively.

The optimistic assessment is that things are going to get worse in California before they get better. The pessimistic assessment is that they’re going to get worse before they get much worse. As is often the case, hanging around with the pessimists is less fun but more instructive. The current recession has driven California’s state government into what amounts to a five-month budget cycle, according to Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee. He estimates that the budget deal tortuously wrought in July should start falling apart in October, because it was predicated on pie-in-the-sky revenue estimates and because so many of its spending cuts are being challenged, often successfully, in the courts.

The recession will eventually end and California’s finances will improve, say the optimists. Given the state’s pervasive political bias against efficient and effective public services, however, the question is whether its finances will ever get truly well. States that have grown accustomed to thinking of the engine that drives their economies as an inexhaustible resource—whether it’s Michigan and the auto industry, New York and Wall Street, or California and the vision of the sunlit good life that used to attract new residents—find it tough to compete again for what they thought would be theirs forever, and to plan budgets for lean years that turn into lean decades. Instead, they invest their hopes in a deus ex machina that will rescue them from the hard choices they dread.

For California’s governmental-industrial complex, a Read more

November 15, 2009

Giving up the iPhone for the Droid?

by Damon Chetson

Raleigh Criminal Lawyer

Updates Below 11/16/09

I live in the far suburbs (bordering on rural) of Raleigh, and have had the iPhone 3G (not the latest 3GS) since April. I mostly love it. It integrates well with gmail, where I maintain my contacts. It has a few really nice apps that make life easier. And the design is very nice and intuitive. In fact, I’m in discussions with some folks from Bangalore about building an app for the iPhone that relates to part of my law practice.

But AT&T’s network is terrible. Lately I’ve been dropping two or three calls a day. Back before I started my practice, it was mostly just annoying. Now it’s getting to the point where it’s interfering with business. On Friday, when I was in the midst of a major issue with a client, I dropped at least six calls.

AT&T hooked me up with a new SIM card this weekend, and I went to the Apple store where they exchanged the iPhone with a new one. But I dropped another two calls today.

So I’m thinking about switching to Verizon. The Motorola Droid is out, and I played around with it today at the Verizon store. I’ve gotten so used to the high quality of Apple software, that I was somewhat disappointed by the way the Droid moved from application to application and the fact that the same button did not have the same effect in each application.

So I’m going to stick it out for a week with the iPhone. If I continue to have phone troubles this week, I’m going to switch.

It’s unfortunate, because the iPhone has been great for me. But dropped calls are not acceptable. If you’ve got some thoughts on a Verizon phone – Blackberry, Motorola Droid or Palm – that you love, let me know. The Droid is appealing because of the open framework and the fact that apps are going to be developed for it in great quantities.

And if you know how to write an iPhone App, and are interested in having me pay you to write a simple one for my Read more

November 15, 2009

33 Quality Touches for Real Estate Agents

by Mark Green

Database Marketing Expert

In Gary Keller and Dave Jenks’ game changing book “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent”, the authors recommend a “33-Touch” follow-up system to stay top of mind with “mets”.

Millionaire RE Agent It was actually a brilliant idea – for Keller. KW agents immediately began flooding the market with (expensive) calendars, post cards, and chotchkies – building the Keller Williams brand in the process. While Century 21 squandered ad dollars sponsoring the MLB All Star Game and RE/Max floated its balloon on expensive and largely ineffective national TV ad buys, Keller Williams gained market share without spending a corporate dime.

Back in 2004, when the book was published, I felt strongly that 33 annual touches was too high a frequency for real estate professionals. But that was before I started exploring social media. Today, it’s very conceivable for a real estate agent to reach their database with 33 quality touches per year. Below, I’ve mapped out a sample 33-touch program.

Postal Mail: 5 touches

Direct mail is relatively expensive when compared to some of the vehicles we’ll discuss below – but I still believe it should be a core component in any CRM campaign. Of critical importance – your direct mail efforts need to look and feel as if they are “one-to-one” correspondences. I have never preferred post cards and “newsletters” because they are clearly mass-mailing efforts. We want your contacts to believe that you specifically thought of them when we reach them via direct mail. Direct mail ideas:

Birthday cards for the client and co-client
Thanksgiving card (rather than the stale holiday card approach)
Market updates (make these a mail-merged professional letter, not a bulk-mail blast)
Announcements (invites to charity events, new hires, testimonials/case studies, etc)

E-mail: 12 touches

I’ve written a few articles about the trials and tribulations of email marketing on the Top of Mind Blog – all of which boil down to common sense. Email is cheap and easy. This low barrier to entry creates more and more emails being dumped into our inbox every day. Clutter is a marketer’s worst enemy. Your email correspondences must meet an extremely high bar in order to maintain readership and response over the long Read more

November 14, 2009

David Harsanyi: “C’mon, admit it. Twitter is useless”

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

This is good writing, and the man takes it down in 500 words. From The Denver Post:

Twitter’s popularity and usefulness are a mystery to me. Pressed by personal, professional and cultural forces, I sporadically deploy short missives for fear of becoming one of those cantankerous technophobes who is too dense to recognize the miracle of letting “followers” know I hate raisins or that I loved the finale of “Mad Men.”

Now, not only am I expected to transmit this minutiae mere seconds after I think it, some 20-year-old in California has decreed that I must do it within the brevity of 140 characters. This need for conciseness, in fact, induces normally articulate friends of mine to write in Prince lyrics — recklessly using “2” and “4” and “U” as words.

To this point, I’ve found Twitter so aggressively worthless that I was forced to research exactly what I was missing. In the process, I stumbled across a useful New York Times tech column penned by David Pogue that clarified all. The headline read, “Twitter? It’s What You Make It.”

In summation, like your beloved pet rock, Twitter is useful only in your imagination.

Despite this, I can’t begin to add up how many times, as a member of the media, I’ve been instructed that I need to Twitter by people who have absolutely no clue what Twittering means. How Twitter helps journalism is yet to be determined.

But the deepest mystery of Twitter is why celebrities and elected officials take part. After all, we all know they can’t write their own lines.

Now, admittedly, Twitter can be entertaining on occasion, as it turns out that 140 characters offers a great chance to be misunderstood — and an even greater chance one will expose his inner troglodyte.

In these past few weeks alone, a clueless Colorado State Sen. Dave Schultheis tweeted, “Don’t for a second, think Obama wants what is best for U.S. He is flying the U.S. Plane right into the ground at full speed. Let’s Roll.” NFL running back Larry Johnson took time out from his busy day of sucking at his job to ridicule his coach Read more

November 13, 2009

Embrace the Homebuyer Tax Credit: Solution to the Problem

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

The $8000 first time home buyer tax credit is a mistake. Congress should have enacted the original idea: a $15,000 tax credit. This goes for the repeat home buyer tax credit as well. As a matter of fact, I would like to have seen both tax credits even higher. If you’ll maintain an open mind for the next few minutes, I hope to show you how embracing these tax credits actually creates a “win-win” situation that benefits you and this great nation.

The inherent spirit of humankind is individualistic, creative and inclined toward action. The heart of man is inexorably drawn toward freedom: freedom to live, freedom to express and freedom to choose. No matter what short-term damage is effected by an oppressor or institutionalized by a government, men and women will devise ways to rebuild and overcome. Even in countries where the idea of freedom has been systematically driven out by force, we witness people taking action toward freedom. It is a natural state that can be delayed, but not denied. We are DOERs. This country, the United States of America, is the poster child for taking action toward freedom. We are a nation made up of DOERs.

So what does this have to do with the tax credit? It empowers us with a “win-win” opportunity. The immoral bribes to home buyers, the unconstitutional mandate for health insurance, the socialistic bail-outs, even the very destruction wrought by stimulus packages: embrace them all! These are all opportunities to make that “win-win” choice. Embrace the home buyer’s credit and ACT on it! Be a DOER. It’s the DOERs who create the success of our society. A nation of DOERs – of independent, entrepreneurial, action-based DOERs – will always bring about the necessary changes to save this republic. If you desire your own success, then you desire to become a DOER.

More specifically: every action you take to help another person receive the tax credit strengthens you as a DOER while at the same time weakening the architects – the very architecture – that imposes itself upon a free people with that tax credit. Eventually, Read more

November 12, 2009

The #1 Obstacle in Real Estate

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Would you like to know what the #1 obstacle is to achieving success in the real estate profession? If you did know, would you create a marketing campaign around it and start knocking the ball out of the park? I love marketing campaigns. I love creating them and prodding them into action; I even love writing about successful real estate marketing campaigns. But the truth is, the biggest obstacle to our success isn’t a lack of good marketing ideas. It’s not the economy or interest rates or the inventory. It’s actually nothing “out there.” That’s because there’s nothing “out there” nearly so scary or powerful or destructive to our success as we are to ourselves. That’s right: our #1 obstacle in Real Estate… is us. We all carry around a few self-doubts, maybe even a few “I can’ts.” If asked, I bet you could list five things you don’t like about yourself without even putting much thought into it. It’s as if we’ve gone on a date with ourselves and halfway through dinner decided we’re not good enough for the other person at the table… and the other person is us!

Knowledge is power and knowing that we are our own biggest obstacle is very powerful. Yes, you have to have goals. Yes, you need a marketing plan to achieve them. But I guarantee you that plan will be much more successful if its very first step, is to fall back in love… with yourself. Sound a little corny? Maybe easier said than done? Fear not: I’m going to leave you with a small, powerful two-word phrase for that all-important first step. Not long ago I was talking to my 7 year old son and I was congratulating him on figuring something out for himself. He immediately threw his arms into the air and said “Yeah Me!” No pretense. No guilt. Only genuine admiration. Imagine that: “Yeah Me!”

Go ahead, try it yourself. Stop reading for a moment, put your arms in the air and say “Yeah Me!” Come on… say it with feeling – really mean it. “Yeah Me!” Does it feel Read more

November 12, 2009

When the cash-for-clunkers “logic” comes to the real estate market, it’s time for every homeowner with equity to cash in big

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

It’s cash-for-clunkers time in the real estate market.

Last week, in addition to extending the $8,000 first-time home-buyers tax credit for another six months, Congress added a new $6,500 tax-credit for move-up buyers.

The credit can be applied for homes selling for as much as $800,000, and the income limits exclude almost nobody.

You have to have lived in your home for more than five years out of the last eight, but that’s hardly an onerous restriction. And homeowners who have put down roots have equity.

Remember that capital gains on your primary residence are excluded from taxation if you have lived in your home for the past five years. But the way the government is spending money, that exclusion cannot last.

But, but, but… Your home isn’t worth what it was in December of 2005. That’s true, but it doesn’t change anything. The home that you can buy now was also selling for more four years ago.

Here’s the way things really shake out: If you have equity in your home, you can take that equity as a tax-free profit — for now. At the same time, you can snag the $6,500 tax credit. And you can do all of this at historic low interest rates.

If your house is worth $400,000 and you only paid $300,000 for it, you could reap a gain of $100,000 — which would save you thousands of dollars in taxes. If you wait for prices to go higher, you may wait a long time for a much smaller return. And the house you buy then will have appreciated, also.

I think we’re looking at a perfect storm for homeowners with equity: You can move now, take a tax-free gain, get a lot more house than you could have bought a few years ago, all financed with a low-interest mortgage. And then, next April, Uncle Sam will write you a big fat check for your trouble.

On second thought, this is less cash-for-clunkers than the taxpayer’s revenge…

Sell this idea! Feel free to share this idea with your clients and prospects — in your blog, by email, on the phone. This is big, and the Read more

BloodhoundBlog

Archives (page 106 of 372)

About the TechnoGeek Cell Phone Debate

by Jeff Brown

Another 25%? Ouch, that’s going to leave a mark…..

by Tom Vanderwell

Motorola Droid: First Impressions

by Damon Chetson

Taking the Genius of Brian Brady to the Next Level: How to Pipe Linked In Network Updates Into Your Feed Reader

by Mark Green

Further thoughts — mostly non-thoughts — on RPR

by Greg Swann

Mortgage Market Update on BlogTalk Radio

by Tony Gallegos

Purposeful Living Is Living For Real

by Jeff Brown

As RPR hits, NAR (finally) Concedes that Google isn’t a “Scraper”

by John Rowles

How can a flat and dusty bumpkintopia like Texas outgrow a paradise on earth like California?

by Greg Swann

Giving up the iPhone for the Droid?

by Damon Chetson

33 Quality Touches for Real Estate Agents

by Mark Green

David Harsanyi: “C’mon, admit it. Twitter is useless”

by Greg Swann

Embrace the Homebuyer Tax Credit: Solution to the Problem

by Sean Purcell

The #1 Obstacle in Real Estate

by Sean Purcell

When the cash-for-clunkers “logic” comes to the real estate market, it’s time for every homeowner with equity to cash in big

by Greg Swann

Search BloodhoundBlog

Subscribe to our RSS feeds

Inventing Real Estate 2.0

Back of the house

Media Contacts