How Loan Originators Can Take The Lead in Web 2.0 Instruction - 02/27/09 02:52 AM
"If you thought REALTORs were behind the learning curve in Web 2.0, you should see the lenders"
If you're a loan originator, on Active Rain, congratulations.  There are some 300,000 working loan originators today and I'm guessing that about 1% of us are actively using social media.  Certainly, the REALTORs are way ahead of us but even they have room for growth.  If the participatory web is the future of commercial communication, this gives loan originators a tremendous opportunity to "stop buying donuts" and start teaching the close to 900,000 real estate agents, who don't get it, how to succeed.
Remember … (5 comments)

The Bigger You Give, The Bigger You Get (Back)...Content Ownership on ActiveRain - 02/23/09 07:56 PM
I was really looking forward to Jeff's post today about "content ownership".  It's obvious that I feel this is an important issue. 
I wanted to highlight some of the salient points I made the other day but the Terms of Service forbid me to parse from "Members Only" posts and republish them in a public post.  You can click the link to get some background.
I was shocked when I saw that Jeff disabled his comments on his opinion.  It's not like Jeff to shy away from thoughtful discourse so I can only guess that the idea was that the Company … (4 comments)

Old Skool: Six Stages To A Hot Market - 02/17/09 08:58 PM
I wrote this about two years ago.  It won a couple of Carnivals: 
Carnival of Real Estate, hosted here on Active Rain
Carnival of Real Estate Investing, hosted by Agent Shopper
It was a lot of fun to write and a pretty good read (if I say so myself). While I've written informational blog posts, on Myspace, since 2004, I had just started to seriously blog on Active Rain, at this time in my life.  "Old-timers" in the Rain will remember this one but I thought some of the new folks might enjoy this light-hearted look at a boom town:
I … (10 comments)

Making the Scene: How to create new public Scenius scenes - 02/16/09 01:38 PM

Via Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com):
I’ve written a ton about Scenius scenes, but, until lately, we’ve kept the scene creation praxis fairly close to our vests. I had documented the process very early for the folks who were involved in the original discussion of the Scenius idea, then shared that video how-to with other folks by email. But we’re doing things differently than we were last November. And I took up the topic of scene creation in public in Seattle both Thursday and Friday. On Friday, I promised to cook up newer, better documentation by Monday.
I’m a day early. Click on this … (1 comments)

Real Estate BarCamp Seattle 2009... a very in person cyberspace blast. - 02/15/09 10:58 PM
Some coverage of the BHBUnchained and Seattle REBar camp Video clips of Redfin.com CEO Glenn Kelman from the BloodhoundBlog Unchained preview event in Seattle Living that Seattltude: Bloodhounds listening above the Sound
Via René Fabre IT Marketing (Ticor Title Company):
The barcamp event this past Friday (2/13/09) in Seattle at Zillow HQ was an absolute winner.
An awesome free flowing day exchanging ideas and experience on most every topic imaginable that had to do with technology, social media, blogging, SEO, SEM, and marketing real estate.
Creativity, openess, passion, and discovery permeated the spaces all day!
A very special event that was so … (5 comments)

How Much Should You "Put Down"? - 02/14/09 04:25 AM
Down payment requirements, for mortgage loan programs,  have increased over the past 12-18 months.  Here are some examples:
FHA hiked the statutory down payment to 3.5% Piggy-back mortgages, using second liens, are all but dead.  Conventional loans, with down payments of less than 20%, require private mortgage insurance (PMI).  PMI companies have hiked down payment requirements. State loan programs, like the CalSTRS loan program, suspended “no-down” programs Jumbo loans require hefty down payments The larger down payment requirements were implemented to “limit loss exposure” to the lenders and guaranteeing agencies/insurers.  That’s good right? Well, not necessarily good for you, the borrower.  … (29 comments)

America's #1 Mortgage Rates Report: February 13, 2009 - 02/13/09 09:47 AM
Mortgage rates look to trend up in the next week or so.  Ambiguity about the spending/stimulus bill, combined with a massive borrowing effort by the Government, is making it difficult for mortgage rates to stay below 5%.  Economic data are still bleak and that should act as a ceiling for mortgage rates in the near-term.
If you’re buying a home, with a conventional loan, you should be able to lock-in 4.875% this morning.  I’d take that rate if you plan to close in February.  I, like Bill Gross of PIMCO, still think we’ll see mortgage rates at 4.5% again; we might … (3 comments)