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"In 24 months Localism will have more traffic than Trulia and Zillow combined." Jonathan Washburn July 28, 2008
Last week on vacation, I mentioned to my young friend, Charles, that I thought he watched way too much of the cartoon channel. Each morning, he got up early, rolled into the living room, turned on the TV and flopped on the couch until it was time to hit the beach. When we got back, he brushed of the sand and repeated this ritual.OK, fair enough. He did admit that his cartoon channel habit was a little excessive, especially now that he’s old enough to have outgrown Spongebob Squarepants. Then he pointed out to me, that not unlike his fixation on … (47 comments)
I will be the first one to say that I hate negative news and the media that just misleads you with negative news from one point of view. But what about the reality of it?
I'm back after my month long reprieve from work (yeah right!). I actually felt my days were longer and more complicated than working! The month of July for me was catch up time...doing the things I haven't gotten around to in the last, oh 19 years!
Recent stories of "profile jacking" on Twitter point out the necessity for corporations to vigorously monitor their on-line reputation. The most notable of the recent stories is that of "Janet," an Exxon "employee" who began posting at the fake Twitter account called ExxonMobilCorp. Jeremiah Owyang has a great review of the Exxon Twitter debacle, and offers some advice to corporations and to the social mediasphere. And, of course, one of his pieces of advice is that "Companies must monitor their brand." Exxon clearly fell asleep on this one, and others have fallen asleep as well, including CNN and Seth Godin.
Since Spencer over at Zillow has brought up the discussion of homeowners being delusional about the value of their homes, I propose the following question: Are they delusional? Or are we? Maybe there isn't a gap in reality and perception. Maybe the "value" of a property can be more than one number.
This past Saturday, just like the first Saturday of every August, was White Linen Night in the Arts District of New Orleans. I haven't seen such a crowd for a long time and although the weather was hot, hot, hot, it didn't appear to keep anyone from coming out, cruising through the art galleries and enjoying food and drinks all along Julia Street.
I'm sure this blog is going to get lots of folks up in arms but I am tired of reading over and over again of how agents are refusing to WORK without:
Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) is supposed to write on the topic of Creating Communities for Localism although I can imagine the bombardment with the LAND RUSH going on. I wanted to give my opinion on concerns that arose of diluting the communities and cities within our counties and creating our own niche market communities.
Unlike some bloggers I know, it takes me quite a bit of time to write a blog post. I tend to slave over my blog post with research, creation of graphics, and gathering links. I was often frustrated when I saw other bloggers be able to churn out multiple blog posts a week with little effort. But the more I thought about this, I began to wonder if it's actually a good thing. Pat Kitano then confirmed this at Inman Connect when he talked about focusing on the quality instead of the quantity of blog post. 
I is the difference between realty and reality... 
There is so much talk about Foreclosure, Short Sales, and Bank Owned properties, but in my day to day business, I've found that most people don't understand the difference between them all. Here is a brief overview.
Some of you may remember my post where I shared a tour and some photos of a day trip in March 2008 to Canyon Lake and Tortilla Flats.
I am always curious as to why more professionals don't use blogging as a means of growing their business. I have seen many come and go, they write less than twenty-five posts, and then disappear into the sunset. I was looking through my subscriptions today and there are some that have not posted since May, so I thought about helping some of the current newbies with this analogy:
I received an urgent email on Monday. A staging friend needed help on a big project, and I mean BIG!!! The job was two hours away, and I would have to spend the night. I thought about all I had going. Hmmm...NOTHING! I called her to let her know I was available for two days. Tuesday morning, I jumped into my trusty Jeep, glad that I had just had it serviced and new brakes put on, because I was headed into the mountains!
Dear colleague,
For the longest time I hadn't put a listing via Postlets on Activerain. I wanted to keep it to stories about my family and stories about real estate that related to buyers and sellers on how they could either save money or keep themselves from a lawsuit.
This was great. I went to my first listing appointment that was directly from my AR BLOG! WOO-HOO.
Business cards, business cards, we hand them out by the dozen. We buy boxes by the thousand, and truthfully, most vanish into that secret place all dead business all go (much like those missing socks).
As is, where is, and without warranties are words I use on a daily basis. I know a thing or two about REO's and I find myself repeating these words over and over to agents to relay onto theor clients. This is a constant. Even when we are closing a REO deal I am still repeating these words on a daily basis to the buyers agent. 
It seems that every day I hear something on the local news about something pertaining to Arkansas.
$599,000 Motivated sellers. Bring in all offers.This home is no longer in the MLS, but sellers are still interested in selling.
I see a lot of hurt feelings posted in these blogs. Consumers think we get paid too much, Buyers are liars, don't people consider our feelings, we use lots of gas.
When Satellite Radio first came out, I thought it was a scam to make people pay to listen to music that they can listen to for free on regular FM Radio...
Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi, who was appointed volunteer national coordinator for Muslim American affairs by the Obama campaign on July 26, has resigned following revelations by the Wall Street Journal that he has connections with a fundamentalist Imam.
OPEN HOUSE Friday August 8, 2008 9:30 Reduced $50k
Our local newspaper here in Georgetown, Texas, is the Williamson County Sun. It has news about the area (rarely national news, unless it pertains to a local), when and where the next fundraiser with good food is going to be, news about local businesses - your typical small town newspaper. 
OK kids, got a phone call from a client that found me on the internet for my market and wanted me to list his new construction project that is not yet completed.
Rising gas prices along with general increases in cost of living across the board are forcing many people to tighten their budgets and cut excess spending. In order to maintain a certain standard of living, people everywhere are looking for new ways to stretch their paychecks and make ends meet. While most people cannot realistically cut the cost of gasoline from their budgets, millions are finding ways to creatively cut back on fuel costs. Here are just a few ways you can help minimize your gas usage and save a few pennies at the pump. 
Someone over at Kinetic Knowledge (who apparently doesn't want to be identified) published this justification for not having a thorough and dominant index of content in search engines. If you base your service on technology that is unable to create and sustain a deep and thorough of everything published, this is an expected justification.
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Medford Lakes enjoyed another successful Canoe Carnival for 2008 this past weekend. As always it was a great time for the community, families and friends to celebrate the uniqueness that's Medford Lakes.There had originally been weather reports calling for showers in the evening, but the historical trend in Medford Lakes of no rain on the first Saturday in August was once again upheld. The the festivities went off without any rain, dispite threatening clouds during the day, and even providing a beautiful sunset of the lake. Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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