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I read this post on another forum earlier today:
This morning on the news was a story that caught my interest and I had to share with those that haven't heard. A church in Mass. was struck by lightening and did not have the hundred's of thousands needed to rebuild the steeple. A representative from the now Verizon Cellular approached this community and offered to rebuild the steeple in exchange for the opportunity to hide their cellular towers. You know those eye sores that you see periodically that make it possible for us all to communicate.
Since June of this year, there has been a growing concern among mental health professionals as their business has seen a dramatic decrease. "At first, we couldn't figure out what was going on," said local psychologist Sigismund Freed, smoothing his unruly white hair. "All my colleagues were seeing the same thing – this summer people stopped coming to talk to us. We thought it was just vacations, but now they should be back, and they're not." Dr. Freed's gnarled hands shook as he covered his face in despair.
In his autobiography, football Hall of Famer Gale Sayers stated his personal doctrine this way: "The Lord is first, my friends are second, and I am third." Likewise, the values of the Keller Williams philosophy are "God, Family, then Business."
I have been amazed at the number of creative financing options that lenders have developed over the last few years. Many of these programs are great to help homeowners who would otherwise never buy a home get into a house. Unfortunately, as the level of creativity in these options increased, so did the complexity and level of expertise needed by the client to understand the product. To be honest, I lost track of the how many of the new financing products worked after reverse amortization mortgages were introduced. Regardless of the product, it is crucial to help the client fully understand … (5 comments)
I was asked in another thread why I use spotted cows (holsteins) instead of Black Angus steers....
Earlier this year, I organized a twilight open house for our firm’s listings in Beverly Hills, Michigan. The office had 12 listings there at the time. My hope was twofold: to bring in potential buyers, and to attract real estate agents to preview our properties.
Jerra Ryan, Branch Manager from Premier Mortgage drops by our office from time to time to keep us abreast of mortgages and how things work. Yesterday she sent me the following email. I'm printing it here with her permission. It's a must read... We are also running in to "Credit Mining"--when I pull a credit report for a borrower, their information is sold to Wells Fargo, CountryWide and several of the other "BIG" institutions, who now know they have a "ready, willing" borrower and they contact the borrower and try to get the deal. For all the obvious reason, I am horribly offended … (15 comments)
Probably one of the least known but very useful parts of NAR is the Center for Realtor Technology (CRT). 
We are all familiar with the typical ways to generate business, mail-outs, yard signs, magazine ads, tele-prospecting, newspapers, etc. There are other “outside of the box” ways to generate business.
((Review))
There has been some discussion in the Active Rain forum about the pros and cons of pay per click (PPC) versus organic searches, whereby your site shows up naturally when certain search terms are entered into various search engines. Click fraud has become a very hot topic in the PPC world, and www.Businessweekonline.com devoted an interesting article to this issue.
It's always fun and interesting to check out what your competitors are up to. When you type in a search for your keywords, who comes up? Are your competitors ahead of you or below you? Why? Do you know what kind of traffic they get? Do you know how many links are coming into their site?
Six years ago, a colleague and I were invited to meet with the current owners of an antibellum colonial that was built in the 1840's. During the Civl War, the home was used by both the Union and Confederate at different times as a hospital. Except for the kitchen and bathrooms, everything else is original, down to the blood stains on the hardwood floors in the dining room. When we lsited the property, the owner had lived there eight years and determined that, with his teenagers, he needed more closet and living space.
I just got off the phone with one of our advertising vendors and it prompted me to write. He was very excited the other day when he called because they are launching a website in support of their magazine. He knew my role on the team involves our internet presence so he asked me to go to the site and check it out and give him feedback. I'm happy to help out a vendor, especially one that "owes me one" and the more I can do for him the less it will cost our team to advertise with him in the future. … (9 comments)
Most people's largest investment is the home they own and live in. Why, then, do so many real estate agents put as little information as possible on their listings in the MLS? The MLS is the first place we, as real estate professionals, turn to when we're searching for homes for a buyer. With all the technology and how-to guides available to us, why do so many agents only enter the minimum amount of information required to get a listing on the MLS? Rarely does more information get added after the listing has been entered into the MLS. Are these agents lazy … (34 comments)
Pretty much since there were websites, I have had a site of one kind or another. When the time came to create my first real estate related site I decided to go the low maintenance route.
Rudolph and Joseph of Sellsius° Blog* did a marathon this morning ... A blog marathon, 50 blog posts in one day.
Okay, so I'm out yesterday with two of my favorite clients, Bonnie and her best friend, Tammy. I sold Tammy and her husband a nice 3 acre parcel last Fall. The drywall guys come next week, and they hope to be into their new home before Christmas. I represented Bonnie, and her husband, Scott, a Navy recruiter, on the sale of their home last Spring. They moved onto base housing temporarily to save up some money, with the hope of buying some land or a fixer-upper in the country. 
I`ve been dealing with this family for several days and have been showing them homes throughout the area. 
I find it puzzling that people will use Craigs list to search for homes when they can use all the really cool wiz bang online home searches that have maps, slides shows and virtual tours. For those of you who have not tried it, Craigs list has limited search capabilities and is not very pretty.
Ok so I have noticed that many of you aren't as Geeky as I am. When blogging about AR blog posts not getting indexed a few comments reminded me that agents with limited seo (search engine optimization) knowledge are on AR. This isn't something that I am used to as most of my online "networking" (playing in the forums as my wife calls it) is on forums that have web design or seo as a focus. At the very least those are the only areas that I spend time in for the most part.
I farm the community I live in. A big part of that is I walk it everyday with my dog, a beautiful big black great dane. We talk to every one, she draws a crowd and she loves the attention. Well, a couple days ago she had a mild stroke during our walk. She became wabbly and wouldn't move. We were only a block away, I couldn't carry home a 150 lb dog in distress. About 10 minutes went by before a neighbor drove by and seen the dog and I. He stoped and offtered to go to my house and … (4 comments)
In recent years developers have been scrambling to remake the Seattle skyline with 40 new projects proposed, approved and/or under construction adding up to 10,000 condo units by 2010. And, this doesn't even include Paul Allen's plans for the South Lake Union district. But, is the infant condo boom already busting? One developer has already foregone plans to build two 28 story condominium towers and instead keep the existing building commercially leased.
Yesterday the Minnesota Attorney General's Office announced indictments against IPM Realty and owners Joe Cole and Jim Abbott.
Here is a quick overview of the condo market in Hoffman Estates, IL. There currently about a years worth of inventory in the condo market. Compared to last month things still look about the same for the condo market in Hoffman Estates.
Mount Prospect has quite a variety of real estate options. Condos and townhomes start in the low $100,000s for one or two bedroom properties. The larger, newer townhome communitites and condos range from the high $300,000s - $800,000 and more for luxury-living units featuring additional amenities. Single-family detached homes are available from $300,000s - $800,000s. There are many great parks nestled in the quiet, tree-lined streets of the village.
A comment by Ken prompted me to write this post. Has Active Rain taken over your life? Judging from the level of activity by some of the members, I would have to say yes. There are several people on this site everyday wihtout fail, adding new blog posts, posting in the forum and inviting new members. I'm curious. For those that are very active, how has it affected other parts of your business? Have things slipped? Are you adding content to your own site often enough? Posting to other blogs or forums? There have been quite a few posts about the … (15 comments)
Broker Bryant just posted a wonderful BLOG about his 100th BLOG. It got me thinking about the tremendous amount of growth that I have done since joining Active Rain. In fact it has been an amazing ride. You see I found Active Rain when I was faced with a major career decision Stay or Leave. I found the courage in many of the early BLOGs from here to make a major change in my business. It was Independence Day that I wrote my first BLOG. It was a State of the Market Report and these BLOGs are what I post the most … (6 comments)
I have to do a blog back on Bryan Brady's http://activerain.com/blogsview/Make-LAZY-Buyer-s-Agents-your-Friends?9742. 
Three Things That Keep You In Control Of The Transaction
From The State Police - NOT A JOKE You walk across the parking lot, unlock your car and get inside. You start The engine and shift into Reverse, and when you look into the rear view Mirror to back out of your parking space, you notice a piece of paper Stuck To the middle of the rear window. So, you shift into Park, unlock Your Doors And jump out of your car to remove that paper (or whatever it is) That Is Obstructing your view. When you reach the back of your car, that is when the car jackers appear out … (10 comments)
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