IS THE AVERAGE REAL ESTATE LICENSEE ABLE TO MAKE A LIVING INCOME TODAY??
Here's an interesting post by Len Harley that I wanted to pass on to my local agents outside of Activerain. Based on the latest NAR statistics, is real estate still a viable business for the average agent? I would think not. However, I would be interested to see what these numbers would look like in Sonoma County.
IS THE AVERAGE REAL ESTATE LICENSEE ABLE TO MAKE A LIVING INCOME TODAY??
A review of the NAR statistics on AGENT and BROKER earnings for 2010, it would appear that agents and brokers need other forms of income to maintain a standard of living to which are accustomed.
For agents who entered the real estate business between the years 2004 and 2007, they have had a rude awakening. While our business has always had it's ups and downs in terms of agent income, the loss of about 20% of the NAR membership is not matched by a 20% increase in income for present members.
The NAR reports that the typical NAR member had 8 transaction sides in 2010-this is up from 7 sides in 2009.
For the average market today with a sales price of $200,000, this number represents an annual income of about $24,000.
The NAR reports that Brokers and broker associates typically had 10 transactions, while sales agents typically had 7.
That would represent an annual income of about $30,000 for brokers and broker associates. Not sufficient if the broker is also a broker/owner. Of course, this number may represent "net income to the broker". The question is, "what is the overhead"?
The NAR reports that 51 percent of members had transaction involving a property in foreclosure and 44 percent of members had a transaction involving a short sale.
THAT IS VERY TELLING since most foreclosures and short sales represent a less than average SOLD price and the commissions for these sales is generally lower than for home owner sales.
The NAR reports that - While the median transaction sides increased, the brokerage sales volume fell to $1.1 million in 2010 from $1.2 million in 2009. Members had more transactions (typically), but the total volume of what those sales were worth was lower in 2010 than in 2009.
If that $1.1 million represents "sales volume", it may also represent "gross income", in which case, the income is not sufficient to maintain a real estate practice in most real estate markets across the U.S.
The NAR reports that - A transaction side can either be the selling or buying side of a real estate transaction. If the agent worked as both the buyer and seller's agent that would count as two transaction sides.
Which serves to encourage dual agency to the detriment of many home buyers. Although the benefits of dual agency to an individual agent is not generally significant because of the limitations under most state's license laws, to brokers, it usually means twice the income.
For more information on the 2011 NAR Member Profile, click here.
You can reach Anthony Ebright at 707-548-0752 if you need help refinancing or purchasing your home in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Bodega Bay, Windsor, Cloverdale, Guerneville, Sonoma.
Anthony Ebright is a Sales Manager and Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Santa Rosa, California. His opinions and statements are his own. Wells Fargo does not endorse any comments made by its employees on this blog. All statements and viewpoints expressed in the comments are strictly those of the commenter alone, and do not constitute an official position of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo does not validate any assertions or forward-looking statements in the comments.
Russel Ray is one of the most prolific bloggers on Activerain. I've learn many pointers from his blog posts. If you're wondering if blogging on activerain works or not. Just read this post. Thanks for all your great work, Russel!
I had a recent Invitee ask me how I define my ActiveRain success.
When I first started at ActiveRain on March 10, 2007, I didn't see it as part of my success at all. I checked in once a quarter to see what was going on and then went back to those areas that I used to define my success.
When I restarted at ActiveRain on July 22, 2008, I had a goal:
To have more points than a certain guy who absolutely hates me because I live an openly gay life, am successful, and believe myself to be just as a good a person as him and people like him. I can only imagine his agony and despair after what happened in New York last week.
In the beginning, I wanted points. When I saw how easy it was to get points, getting points lost some of its luster (probably "lustre" for my Canadian friends).
Points make it fun, and there is a certain advantage to having over 500,000 points, such as having a free RainMaker account!
At one point, pun intended, the more points you had, the closer you were to the ActiveRain home page, which, by my analysis at the time, seemed to mean that your blog posts would be crawled by the Internet spiders more often.
As Todd Clark and Lenn Harley can attest, the exposure was greater because when you came to ActiveRain to log in, all you ever saw were Todd Clark and Lenn Harley. Would anyone else ever have a chance of being on that home page?
Now you see a success story which rotates between about 15 people, and public featured posts, a much better system in my eyes. That's also why getting a featured post is still valuable, much more valuable than being featured in the Daily Drop. It's why I believe ActiveRain needs to do a better job of finding featured posts by other than the same old people, and do a better job of rotating posts on the home page featured post list. It has gotten better with the SUGGEST button, but when 18 people tell you publicly in a comment that they pushed that button, but the post never gets featured, you wonder what's going on.
I've also noticed that the featured post list goes through cycles. There will be eight or ten featured posts that show up within minutes of each other, and then it will go hours at a time, sometimes as long as two days (when there's a Raincamp) with one or two new features, maybe even none! Since it's been stated several times that the staff doesn't like to feature old posts, it's not hard to determine that when they are busy with Raincamp, you're just not going to get a featured post unless you're one of the ten or so people that the whole ActiveRain staff like.
But I digress....
I've invited many thousands of people to ActiveRain, but only 182 have accepted my invitation, three within the past couple of weeks. Because I get 10% of their points, I have accumulated over 300,000 points from my Invitees. That infuriates a few people here because it has allowed me to get lots of points per week and eventually pass them on the Leaderboard. It's not something I planned, nor a goal; it just happened.
Do I invite them to get points? Sure, but more importantly, I want to help them find greater success in this Internet world. The best place to do that is right here at ActiveRain. It's too bad that ActiveRain doesn't have a column on the Leaderboard that shows number of Invitees instead of, or in addition to, number of featured posts, because I think the number of Invitees is much more valuable to ActiveRain, and if more people would invite people to Play in the Rain with us, maybe we'd have a larger membership than NAR!
Since July 22, 2008, I can attribute $112,257 of income directly to referrals from ActiveRain members like Steve Hall, Kelly McQuien, Barb Fischer, Stephanie Reynolds, and Stewart Penn, as well as people calling me after one of my ActiveRain posts showed up in their Google search. Money is only a part of how I define my ActiveRain success, though. As with all things in life, money makes it easier to live, to do those things you want to do, to help others.
Ah, to help others. There's the key to how I define my ActiveRain success:
Helping buyers buy a home.
Helping sellers determine the condition of their home so that they can repair, disclose, and price appropriately.
Helping real estate agents by providing a good, thorough home inspection that will keep them out of court and with happy clients.
Helping ActiveRain members themselves.
As long as I have an adequate income to pay my current expenses, buy my annual passes to the Zoo/Safari Park, SeaWorld, and the Natural History Museum, and put some aside for those years when I'm no longer physically and mentally capable of working, the remainder of my time is spent helping people, FOR FREE!
Helping people was ingrained into my physical being by my wise old grandmother, and once she got the basics down (it wasn't easy), I did the rest: Key Club, Student Government, Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity, Jaycees, American Heart Association, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Special Olympics, American Cancer Society, and so many more that I have volunteered with over the years.
Helping people makes those people feel good, and it makes me feel good.
A couple of weeks ago I discovered a way to have fun, make people feel good, and help them get more exposure and points at ActiveRain. All of that made me feel good. Let me explain.
You might have seen the weekly posts by Patricia Kennedy and Donne Knudsen featuring Patricia's opinion of the best posts she has read from the past week and Donne's opinion of feature worthy posts that the ActiveRain staff missed.
Taking a cue from them, but taking it a little further, I developed my Feature worthy and rebloggable series. My intent is to specifically focus on older posts that were feature worthy and got overlooked. My intent is to get people to either go leave some additional comments on them or to reblog them. Both actions make the other person feel good, and when I checked after both weeks (my series is only two weeks old), I saw that all 20 people that I featured had additional comments, and many had several reblogs. I think I saw one post that had had two comments and no reblogs when I posted a link to it, and after just one day it had many more comments and six reblogs.
Helping other members get more exposure, more friends, more followers, more points, is the #1 way that I define my ActiveRain success. Ultimately, interacting with more people at ActiveRain will provide YOU with the ability to interact better when those tough negotiations come around. YOU will have better ideas, better information, experiences of those who have gone through something similar.... YOU have a place to rant that is private and supportive...
Everything for me will work out because I have always believed that what goes around comes around, and I spend a lot of time going around.
P.S. I still like points, though.
Next post will be:
Music on Mondays from The Music Chronicles of Russel Ray
You can reach Anthony Ebright at 707-548-0752 if you need help refinancing or purchasing your home in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Bodega Bay, Windsor, Cloverdale, Guerneville, Sonoma.
Anthony Ebright is a Sales Manager and Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Santa Rosa, California. His opinions and statements are his own. Wells Fargo does not endorse any comments made by its employees on this blog. All statements and viewpoints expressed in the comments are strictly those of the commenter alone, and do not constitute an official position of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo does not validate any assertions or forward-looking statements in the comments.
FHA Home Loans - 5% Down on FHA loans? Really? - Santa Rosa, CA
I love the way Bridget McGee writes and wanted to pass this nice posting about potential FHA home loan changes to my Santa Rosa, California Real Estate Agents. I wish I had more time to write as well and as thoroughly as Bridget. I have to agree, the government is trying to fix a cracked dam with spackle.
However, they have a fine line to walk between overregulation and complete market collapse. I don't envy their position and I'm not smart enough to even consider a solution for the FHA home loan program. LOL! My head would explode from trying to figure out how to make everyone happy.
There's something to be said about having skin in the game when you buy your home using an FHA home loan. If we could all buy a house with little or no money down, what reason do we have to keep the house if it's no longer of value to us? It's a tough subject that will continue to be debated on until the government makes their move. In the meantime, if you buyers are looking for a home and they are not using a VA home loan, then, you should advice them to save, save, save! FHA home loans are still going to be the main source of financing for our country of home buyers even if the down payment is raised to 5%.
Happy Selling! From Anthony Ebright in Santa Rosa, California!
Thanks again to Bridget McGee for writing this nice posting!
Looks like our elected officials are at it again. They are trying to fix the housing crisis by increasing the cost to purchase. FHA loans (Federal Housing Administration) are backed by the government and insured through up-front and monthly mortgage insurance paid by the borrower and required by the program.
The thought is that increasing the required FHA down payment from 3.5% to 5% will shore up the coffers of the government backed FHA mortgage program. In real dollars, this means that on a $200,000 mortgage, the required down payment will increase from $7000 to $10,000.
In the last few years, the required down payment has already increased from 2.25%, and the monthly mortgage insurance has increased from .5% to 1.15% of the monthly payment.
For the majority of borrowers these increases to the monthly mortgage insurance has already decreased their buying power.
In my opinion, an increase of the down payment required will:
decrease the buying power of first time home buyers even further
lower the number of credit-worthy borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage
drop the prices on an already greatly declined housing market
increase the use of down payment assistance (usually local government subsidies), decreasing the "skin in the game" for first time buyers
further decrease the number of move-up buyers, already short on equity giving them less money to put down on a new home. It is noted that move-up buyers don't typically qualify for down-payment assistance programs.
According to reports, in March of 2010 when the increase was previously proposed:
An increase in down payments to 5%, from the current minimum 3.5%, would limit new FHA-backed loans by 40%, equivalent to 300,000 fewer home sales, according to testimony that FHA Commissioner David Stevens is set to deliver on Thursday [03/11/10].
“We share the goal of increasing equity in home purchase transactions, but determined after extensive evaluation that such a proposal would adversely impact the housing market recovery,” Mr. Stevens says in his testimony.
Since that time we have seen an increase in foreclosures, short sales has become an every day phrase, a tightening of credit requirements across the board, and a decrease in home sales.
Although I don't want to spend my tax dollars to bail out yet another program, I don't believe that this increase will help the consumer. The only thing this does is to lessen the risk (slightly) to the banks.
Instead of making yet another change to the mortgage requirements, let's police the banks and determine exactly what has happened to the over 11 TRILLION DOLLARS that was supposed to help stabilize our economy. I don't know about you, but I don't feel too stable! Our government is putting its finger in the pin hole leak instead of quadruple sand-bagging around the money that has already been spent or promised.
In the meantime, if you are sitting on the fence and plan on using an FHA loan to purchase a home, you may want to step up the home search or plan on shoring up your savings plan.
If you would like help with a budget to help to ensure you are mortgage ready in Maryland, no matter what the up-coming changes, give your favorite mortgage loan officer a call. If you don't have a favorite, call me, Mortgage Mama. I will become your favorite!
5% Down On FHA loans? Really?
Warm Regards,
Bridget McGee Maryland Mortgage Mama Allied Home Mortgage Corp #1448 410-960-2061 EHO
If you are considering purchasing a home in Maryland and want to be sure you are mortgage ready, my brother Tony and I will be happy to help! We help to make the mortgage process a pleasure!
For home owner's we provide a no-cost mortgage review to help you to determine if refinancing may be in your best interest. Please contact me at 410-960-2061.
You can reach Anthony Ebright at 707-548-0752 if you need help refinancing or purchasing your home in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Bodega Bay, Windsor, Cloverdale, Guerneville, Sonoma.
Anthony Ebright is a Sales Manager and Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Santa Rosa, California. His opinions and statements are his own. Wells Fargo does not endorse any comments made by its employees on this blog. All statements and viewpoints expressed in the comments are strictly those of the commenter alone, and do not constitute an official position of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo does not validate any assertions or forward-looking statements in the comments.
Cynthia Larsen just educated me about a location in Bodega Bay that just blew my mind! So, I'm reposting it to share and spread the word about "Hole in the Head" in Bodega Bay. I can't wait to drive out to the site after reading about it. Thanks history lesson Cynthia!
I'll be the first to admit this photo doesn't look like much, but it's what you don't see that speaks louder than words.
What looks like a small round pond, started out as a man-made hole that spreads 142 feet across and 120 feet down. You could lower a 10 story building into this hole if it wasn't filled with rain water.
This hole, known as "Hole in the Head", was not dug to provide the public with a place to swim. This was going to be the location of a nuclear power plant. The utility company behind it (Pacific Gas & Electric) was building "the biggest boiling water reactor yet scheduled". The plan was to boil ocean water ... the Pacific Ocean.
"Hole in the Head" is located on Bodega Head (hence the name) in Bodega Bay, CA. From the beginning, this "project" was scrutinized by a handful of feisty Bodega Bay citizens. The County, at the time, referred to these critics as "nervous Nellies" whose fear of Nuclear energy was nothing more than lack of knowledge.
All of this was taking place in the early '60s, and Geologists didn't understand tectonics as they do today. Neither did the protesters, but they knew that a nuclear reactor didn't belong 100 yards away from the Pacific. Over the next several years, the critics notified newspaper reporters and talked their way into radio stations to spread the word.
This was how a Geophysicist, Pierre Saint-Amand, heard about the nuclear reactor being built on Bodega Head. He came to take a look, becoming the first to observe the sites proximity to the San Andreas fault. Saint-Amand then alerted the Atomic Energy Commission who ultimately shut the project down in 1964.
Today, we still have "Hole in the Head" to remind us how Japan's recent nuclear disaster could have been our own. Instead of a nuclear power plant, we have a deep hole filled with fresh, clear, uncontaminated water.
You can reach Anthony Ebright at 707-548-0752 if you need help refinancing or purchasing your home in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Bodega Bay, Windsor, Cloverdale, Guerneville, Sonoma.
Anthony Ebright is a Sales Manager and Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Santa Rosa, California. His opinions and statements are his own. Wells Fargo does not endorse any comments made by its employees on this blog. All statements and viewpoints expressed in the comments are strictly those of the commenter alone, and do not constitute an official position of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo does not validate any assertions or forward-looking statements in the comments.
This is definately a favorite local activity! I've been caught in the Cotati Crawl before and it's a blast! Thanks for the reminder Cynthia! I wish I could make it!
Look out! The Cotati Crawl, which takes place every Thursay Night, lands on Cinco De Mayo this year. Sonoma State University Students and residents alike will be flooding the restaurants and bars of downtown Cotati, all two blocks of it.
The Cotati Crawl is a ritual where everyone "crawls" between The 8 Ball, The Tradewinds, Friar Tucks, Spancky's and The Cotati Yacht Club. All are within a block from each other, with restaurants and independent shops scattered in between.
If you are in the area and looking for something to do tonight, there is a party happening in Cotati, CA.
You can reach Anthony Ebright at 707-548-0752 if you need help refinancing or purchasing your home in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Bodega Bay, Windsor, Cloverdale, Guerneville, Sonoma.
Anthony Ebright is a Sales Manager and Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Santa Rosa, California. His opinions and statements are his own. Wells Fargo does not endorse any comments made by its employees on this blog. All statements and viewpoints expressed in the comments are strictly those of the commenter alone, and do not constitute an official position of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo does not validate any assertions or forward-looking statements in the comments.
Now that a year has passed, I've adjusted the list of applications based on my personal experience and feedback from the REALTORS® I've coached and trained. Normally, I would write about each application, but in honor of the Easter season, I'm going to let you discover what each iPhone app can do for you and your real estate business. I've linked every app to it's source and categorized them according to Apple's guidelines to make it super easy for you to find the application.
I've tested every link and will be happy to fix any links that are broken. Just let me know. If there are any new iphone apps that you find valuable to your real estate business, please post them in the comments! I love finding new ways to use my iPhone!
You can reach Anthony Ebright at 707-548-0752 if you need help refinancing or purchasing your home in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Bodega Bay, Windsor, Cloverdale, Guerneville, Sonoma.
Anthony Ebright is a Sales Manager and Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Santa Rosa, California. His opinions and statements are his own. Wells Fargo does not endorse any comments made by its employees on this blog. All statements and viewpoints expressed in the comments are strictly those of the commenter alone, and do not constitute an official position of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo does not validate any assertions or forward-looking statements in the comments.
Social Media Branding for REALTORS® - Online Real Estate Marketing
It's amazing the amount of work it takes to put a class together for me. It took me three weeks of work after hours to come up with 38 slides and guidebook for my social media branding class. I'm blown away by the amount of energy and creativity it takes to set up just one class and commend all the teachers in the world who do this on a daily basis.
Thank you for your incredible dedication to the craft of teaching!
My latest class is designed to help REALTORS® establish a consistent image, or brand with their social media. I've found many agents have floundered in this category. Their profiles are typically inconsistent on their website, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Activerain, etc. So, I put together this powerpoint and guidebook on Social Media Branding for REALTORS® and a free class at the North Bay Association of REALTORS® in Santa Rosa, CA. In exchange for the free class, I only ask for home loan referrals and feedback. Not a bad price! ;-)
I created the powerpoint with the idea that the bulk of the message would be passed on verbally in class, so I hope it still works for anyone who views the powerpoint. Having the guidebook in hand can help. You can find the free guidebook here: http://bitly.com/eEt7Xh. I would love to get any feedback, both positive and negative, so I can continue to improve on my presentation. I've posted the powerpoint in pdf format at www.slideshare.net because several real estate agents told me they couldn't read the presentation after downloading it due to lack of software support. (i.e. no powerpoint). So... here it is! I hope you like it!
You can reach Anthony Ebright at 707-548-0752 if you need help refinancing or purchasing your home in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Bodega Bay, Windsor, Cloverdale, Guerneville, Sonoma.
Anthony Ebright is a Sales Manager and Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Santa Rosa, California. His opinions and statements are his own. Wells Fargo does not endorse any comments made by its employees on this blog. All statements and viewpoints expressed in the comments are strictly those of the commenter alone, and do not constitute an official position of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo does not validate any assertions or forward-looking statements in the comments.
2011 Business Strategies for REALTORS® - Online Real Estate Marketing
Planning for success in 2011 takes a ton of energy, but it's worth the effort! Last year, I taught a class where only 5% of the attending REALTORS® had completed a real estate sales business plan for 2011! I couldn't believe how many real estate agents didn't have a plan completed yet! How are you supposed to run a business without a plan showing you what direction you are going to take for the forthcoming year?
I found out from many of the REALTORS® in the class who didn't complete a business plan that they just didn't know where to start. So... I put together a new class for this year called 2011 Business Strategies for REALTORS® and completed a powerpoint to go with the class. The class was a blast to teach and the real estate agents left with good information that should help them put together a solid business plan.
I was asked by many of the REALTORS® to share the online power point so I posted it on my Facebook business page at http://www.facebook.com/anthony.d.ebright. Then, I realized, I hadn't posted the powerpoint here on Activerain to share with all my other real estate friends! What a goof ball! So, without further adeu, here's the online presentation for anyone who needs a little guidance on making a real estate sales business plan for 2011.
You can reach Anthony Ebright at 707-548-0752 if you need help refinancing or purchasing your home in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Bodega Bay, Windsor, Cloverdale, Guerneville, Sonoma.
Anthony Ebright is a Sales Manager and Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Santa Rosa, California. His opinions and statements are his own. Wells Fargo does not endorse any comments made by its employees on this blog. All statements and viewpoints expressed in the comments are strictly those of the commenter alone, and do not constitute an official position of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo does not validate any assertions or forward-looking statements in the comments.
Social Media Marketing for REALTORS® - Online Real Estate Marketing
It's been awhile since I've posted anything on AR! I've been so busy with my work and life events. I've also been busy Social Media Marketing and branding to my local real estate agents at the North Bay Association of REALTORS®. My classes have basically been a live demonstration and dryboard illustration of my thoughts and ideas. They've been very successful and educational to all who've participated, but I felt I needed to take the classes to a whole new level by creating powerpoint presentations of all my classes.
It's a lot of work!
I didn't realize how much more time it would take me to make a powerpoint summary for just one class! LOL! It's a lot of work! Especially for someone like me who's constantly trying to improve on my designs every time I review my presentation. You should see the difference between my first Social Media creation compared to this current presentation. I had so much fun teaching Social Media Marketing for REALTORS® and received wonderful feedback. I just love teaching! Anyway, I went back to the drawing board to clean up my presentation. Now, I'm ready to share this with the rest of my real estate agents using Activerain as my distribution point.
I hope you like it and get something from this online real estate marketing presentation. I will be working on 8 to 10 other powerpoint presentations about marketing, branding, business development, Social Media, facebook, linkedin and more in the near future. I would love to get feedback! I've learned so much from feedback and am open to suggestions. I'm already working on a possible voiceover and video. I had several students offer to help me with this and am looking forward to the experience. MAKEUP! ;-P
Again, enjoy the online presentation and happy selling!
You can reach Anthony Ebright at 707-548-0752 if you need help refinancing or purchasing your home in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Bodega Bay, Windsor, Cloverdale, Guerneville, Sonoma.
Anthony Ebright is a Sales Manager and Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Santa Rosa, California. His opinions and statements are his own. Wells Fargo does not endorse any comments made by its employees on this blog. All statements and viewpoints expressed in the comments are strictly those of the commenter alone, and do not constitute an official position of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo does not validate any assertions or forward-looking statements in the comments.
Once again, Brad continues to push us to the forefront of Social Media marketinng with his latest posting about QR codes. If this technique takes hold, we could all have a whole new profile image on our business cards soon! Thanks Brad!
I've seen many posts about QR codes, here's one on how to Customize yours and make it different than others.
The QR Code was just one of the hot topics at NAR in New Orleans this year. Out of the hundreds of cards we received for the iPad drawing, there were only 3 business cards that had the QR Code (bar-code) on them. To be honest, I don't like the way they look but they do work well and the technology is impressive.
This weekend, I added my QR code to my Facebook page and had a couple friends call me to confirm it actually worked. They just pointed their phone and QR reader at the screen and I was instantly added to their contacts in their phone. I also added it to my sidebar on ActiveRain to see how it looked and a few members "point and shot" it adding me to their contacts on their phones too.
Here's the quickest and easiest way to create a QR code of your own, and add a little custom color and splash to make it unique and stand out from all the others. I'll walk you through it step-by-step.
Step 1: You'll need to create a QR Code. QR codes can be created to either link back to a desired website, Blog, or Internet page, or they can be used like a business card, much like the one I've created here on my AR sidebar.
There are many QR code generators out there, some of them work right from your phone. I use the iPhone so Optiscan (scanner and generator) and i-nigma-4 (just a reader) are my two favs. If you want to create a code using your computer and have it link to a specific URL instead of your Business/Personal contact info, I recommend goo.gl which also provides some tracking and analytics tools.
Step 2: Next, you need to capture the QR code image as a graphic. On a PC, you'll need to get a screen shot of it "Shift+Print Scr" and then use a cropping tool to capture just the QR code image. On a MAC, just hold down the "shift+command+4" to select area with mouse and capture it as an image. Use any screen capture tool or application you like to do this.
Step 3: Since many of you might not have a graphics editing software like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro, we'll use Picnik.com, a free online graphics editing tool that's easy and free to use.
Step 4: Upload your saved QR Code image to Picnik.com
Step 5: Add a white border to the image.
Step 6: Optional - Add a drop shadow to lift your image off the page.
Step 7: Create your desired colored text and font, resize it, then add to the white border areas of your image. (you can also add small images and other graphics to the border in this step)
Step 8: Save your image back to your desktop as a .jpg file.
Step 9: Test your Final QR code image design to make sure it's working properly.
(Before) (After)
Step 10: Now Add your NEW Customized QR code to everything you can imagine.
Examples: Business cards, websites, blogs, social media sites, signs, flyer's, coffee cups, marketing supplies, the promo magnet on your car door, your company polo shirt on the chest or sleeves, heck... go out and get a stamp made, then go around the world patting everyone on the back so your QR code shows up everywhere. lol~ Well, maybe not to that extent, but you get the point.
These little buggahs will either stick as the newest and greatest thing, or they will die hard like the pet rock. Until then, I'd say take advantage of the technology and use it to the best of your ability. Hopefully this post will make it easier for you to make YOUR QR Code stand out a little more than your competitors. Have fun with it and be sure to point your QR reader at mine above, I'd be pretty embarrassed if it didn't work! :-O
Here's a video tutorial I put together for those who'd rather have these steps visually.
Oh, and if you have your QR Code(s) already, feel free to add it with your comment below.
You can reach Anthony Ebright at 707-548-0752 if you need help refinancing or purchasing your home in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Bodega Bay, Windsor, Cloverdale, Guerneville, Sonoma.
Anthony Ebright is a Sales Manager and Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Santa Rosa, California. His opinions and statements are his own. Wells Fargo does not endorse any comments made by its employees on this blog. All statements and viewpoints expressed in the comments are strictly those of the commenter alone, and do not constitute an official position of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo does not validate any assertions or forward-looking statements in the comments.
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.
brokers need other forms of income to maintain a standard of living to which are accustomed. 
I had a recent Invitee ask me how I define my ActiveRain success.
In the beginning, I wanted points. When I saw how easy it was to get points, getting points lost some of its luster (probably "lustre" for my Canadian friends).
Now you see a success story which rotates between about 15 people, and public featured posts, a much better system in my eyes. That's also why getting a featured post is still valuable, much more valuable than being featured in the Daily Drop. It's why I believe ActiveRain needs to do a better job of finding featured posts by other than the same old people, and do a better job of rotating posts on the home page featured post list. It has gotten better with the SUGGEST button, but when 18 people tell you publicly in a comment that they pushed that button, but the post never gets featured, you wonder what's going on.
I've also noticed that the featured post list goes through cycles. There will be eight or ten featured posts that show up within minutes of each other, and then it will go hours at a time, sometimes as long as two days (when there's a Raincamp) with one or two new features, maybe even none! Since it's been stated several times that the staff doesn't like to feature old posts, it's not hard to determine that when they are busy with Raincamp, you're just not going to get a featured post unless you're one of the ten or so people that the whole ActiveRain staff like.
I've invited many thousands of people to ActiveRain, but only 182 have accepted my invitation, three within the past couple of weeks. Because I get 10% of their points, I have accumulated over 300,000 points from my Invitees. That infuriates a few people here because it has allowed me to get lots of points per week and eventually pass them on the Leaderboard. It's not something I planned, nor a goal; it just happened.
Since July 22, 2008, I can attribute $112,257 of income directly to referrals from ActiveRain members like 
Helping buyers buy a home.
Helping people was ingrained into my physical being by my wise old grandmother, and once she got the basics down (it wasn't easy), I did the rest: Key Club, Student Government, Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity, Jaycees, American Heart Association, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Special Olympics, American Cancer Society, and so many more that I have volunteered with over the years.
A couple of weeks ago I discovered a way to have fun, make people feel good, and help them get more exposure and points at ActiveRain. All of that made me feel good. Let me explain.
Both actions make the other person feel good, and when I checked after both weeks (my series is only two weeks old), I saw that all 20 people that I featured had additional comments, and many had several reblogs. I think I saw one post that had had two comments and no reblogs when I posted a link to it, and after just one day it had many more comments and six reblogs.
Look out! The Cotati Crawl, which takes place every Thursay Night, lands on Cinco De Mayo this year. Sonoma State University Students and residents alike will be flooding the restaurants and bars of downtown Cotati, all two blocks of it.
The Cotati Crawl is a ritual where everyone "crawls" between The 8 Ball, The Tradewinds, Friar Tucks, Spancky's and The Cotati Yacht Club. All are within a block from each other, with restaurants and independent shops scattered in between.
In January of 2010, I wrote a posting on the latest iPhone apps for REALTORS® titled, 
Step 2: Next, you need to capture the QR code image as a graphic. On a PC, you'll need to get a screen shot of it "Shift+Print Scr" and then use a cropping tool to capture just the QR code image. On a MAC, just hold down the "shift+command+4" to select area with mouse and capture it as an image. Use any screen capture tool or application you like to do this.
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