California Real Estate Bloggers

Saving Private Ryan - What If He's a Renter or Tenant

bandersohn — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:05:34 -0700

Paul SlayBaugh wrote a post the other day on his Blog regarding foreclosures. I shared this concept as a comment on his Blog, and now want to expand on it a little, and get an Industry opinion.

Paul said, "What many prospective tenants do not realize when shopping for a place to hang their hats for the next year or two is that the new landlord might be on unstable footing. Unable to keep up with mortgage payments and unable to sell, leasing the home is becoming the trendy way to staunch, or at least slow the bleeding for many struggling homeowners." more...

California Real Estate Bloggers

Another September to remember: September 2008

SWANEPOEL — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:38:06 -0700

The Financial Market Disaster of 2008

September 2008 is exactly two weeks old today, but what a September it has already been. The events of late are unsurpassed in living history and I think that 9/08 may very well be remembered as the worst financial disaster in history. more...

Alternative Business Models

11 September 2001

SWANEPOEL — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:47:57 -0700

Today we remember the brave men, women and children who lost their lives seven years ago and the heroes that responded to the emergency. There are many different video tributes of that day but I thought that this one was particularly well rounded. http://attacked911.tripod.com/

God Bless America!

Technology, Tools and Tidbits

…and the Winner is…

SWANEPOEL — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 16:36:31 -0700

The results for the XXIX Real Estate Olympiad are in.

Wow, what a huge undertaking it has been to tally the scores, taking all factors into consideration, weighted scores, removing highest and lowest scores and of course double checking the hanging chads. Thank you to all paticipants, nominees,voters and judges!

So the Medal Winners of the 2008 Real Estate Pacesetter Award, as voted by the Inman Real Estate Trends Group, are: more...

Alternative Business Models

THE XXIX OLYMPIAD

SWANEPOEL — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:56:42 -0700

This is in follow up to the post last week titled Real Estate Olympics

Recap of Beijing

Mark Spitz's 36-year old record of 7 gold medals at one Olympic event, across all Olympic sports, was shattered when 23-year-old swimming machine Michael Phelps grabbed his 8th gold in Beijing and 14 all-time gold medals. Who will ever forget his 0.01 of a second photo-finish with Serbian - Wow. more...

Alternative Business Models

Is Real Estate the Next Big Target?

SWANEPOEL — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:36:32 -0700

IDENTITY THEFT AND THE STEALING OF CONFIDENTIAL DATA

“Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the nation - especially in the suburbs,” says Congresswoman Melissa Bean. The FTC receives over 250,000 reports of identity theft every year and USA Today reported that in 2007 an estimated 260 million records were stolen - that amounts to 8 records stolen every second of every day.

In real estate this is also a growing concern. Here are three possible vulnerable areas of our industry that I see: more...

Technology, Tools and Tidbits

Referral Based Brokerages and the Little Guy

Hawaii Real Estate Guy — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:34:42 -0700

The real estate industry is changing. Traditional means of advertising have become less effective as home buyers have transitioned to the Internet as a means of identifying property.

As a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) professional, I can corroborate that the cost of online advertising continues to rise; as does the expectation of buyers in their real estate website experience. more...

California Real Estate Bloggers

Real Estate Online Communities and Networks: Novelty or Necessity?

SWANEPOEL — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:25:19 -0700

Congratulations to both ActiveRain and RealTown that have reached that magical six figure membership number of 100,000 people.

Add to these two frontrunners the re-engineered Inman News that now includes an online real estate community (where we are having this discussion right now) and the rapid expansion of the real estate side of LinkedIn and the evidence supports that social networking and community has officially taken hold of real estate. It is here to stay and is on the short list of major contributors to shape the residential real estate industry. more...

Technology, Tools and Tidbits

SocialSpark.com - Will it be relevant to the Real Estate Industry?

lackiem — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:10:05 -0700

I'd like to see what everyone thinks about this service. Will it be relevant to Real Estate? The site is www.socialspark.com

The service, as far as I can tell, connects businesses and bloggers. There are two main components to the site:

1) Bloggers - they build a profile and can have others rate them on their previous work or experience (similar to LinkedIn profiles), and

2) Businesses/Services - they post their blogging needs on the site and have bloggers bid to write (market) about their brand or service. more...

Technology, Tools and Tidbits

Are Blog Fests Time Warps?

lwilkas — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:50:50 -0700

I found myself on a blog fest recently, actually it 's still going on, and had no idea I was a part of it until I received a call from someone else in the voting alerting me to it with a "congratulations!" It turned out that my husband nominated me and there I was and am. What I've found is that it's making me very competitive and desirous of winning -- what, I'm not quite sure, but none the less winning. So each level of competition that I've moved up into finds me sending out an e-mail blast to friends, family, and colleagues to vote for me. Time Warp Number One. more...

California Real Estate Bloggers

How much time do you spend on your blog?

lwilkas — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:41:22 -0800

How much time do you spend writing your blog each week? Are you posting daily or weekly or something in between? What's working for you?