Now, many moons ago I heard of an interesting little fun thing to do when you have a few minutes spare,
Once watching a TV show, two presenters (a husband and wife) were asked to empty the contents of their pockets and, in the case of the wife, their purse.
LIVE ON TELEVISION!!
This 'experiment' really shows what kind of things we carry with us and what our surroundings are made up of - usually of things we take for granted or do not notice!
It is a bit like that credit card company, Whats in your wallet? I ask..what is on your office desk?
For instance...
On my desk I have the following:
One mug of lukewarm tea.
One desktop computer screen with post it notes attached.
One set of desktop speakers
One telephone
two mousemats - one on top of the other, both freebies from recent conferences.
A pad of pink post it notes,
A Sharpie (Red, Fine Point)
Thank you card - from a really nice client!
British and American desktop flags
A plastic mini-piggy bank with 5 x 1cent coins (one third holding capacity, - pig is unopenable!)
A stack of paperwork that is current
2 folders
One in-tray/Out tray set
This keyboard which I am typing on
One bottle of water (half-drunk)
One retractable ball point pen
One desk calendar
Think that covers it...when you analyze it, there doesnt look like alot but it sure it!
Try it yourself! I guarantee you may find some surprises!!
Not long ago were the days of 30,000 members, then 40,000 then 45,000...now we are on the cusp of 50,000 Active Rainers.
What a great, great, great opportunity to make friends, refer business and exposure your services to the industry and public!
The community as a whole boasts many years of experience, with 50,000 members, imagine each possessing 20 years experience in the sector. That would equate to 1 million years of experience! (50,000 x 20 years) however, of course, not all agents have that short or long term of service to the industry, so lets take it down a notch, imagine the average term of a member in the industry was 10 years, collectively the community as a whole would possess half a million years experience! (500,000 years of Real Estate!)
How about the extreme? Imagine there were 6.5 million members, that would be nearly everybody in the industry, Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, Title Agents, the lot! Imagine that they each on average had 10 years of experience in the industry, the community could boast the prehistoric number of 65 million years of experience!
That is as much experience back to the age of the dinosaurs!
I am sure of course, Dinosaurs were not in need of Real Estate assistance to invest in that "large lofty cave in the hills overlooking the swamp and within a days trek to the ancient forest" and whether to get an "Adjustable rate or Fixed rate", or even concerned about if the cave would appraise correctly!
In reality of course, the experience within the community would of course be more used to "cute Cape Cod home in the hills with lake views and within driving distance of the National Park" and would be able to get a Mortgage Broker to discuss mortgages with a client!
So there we have it, Active Rain, Collectively more experience that you can shake a pre-historic-fossilized Stick at! :-)
Hope this post makes your day a bit more cheerful!
I wonder if Active Rain would grow large enough to incorporate itself through an IDX Style customizable system into Regional MLS Systems?
It would be a nice feature..with each region having a different MLS though it could be a challenge, what a useful tool, an integrated system where you could list a property, blog about it and use a messaging system between agents.
Hey ....you could even use active rains messaging system to ask for showing instructions!
I wonder if anyone else has thoughts on this idea?
The downside is that the MLS is fee based but with nearly all agents using it, it could be a nice feature....perhaps it could be an add on that is free? Who knows! The possibilities are endless!
It would allow agents to have their marketing, networking, MLS, contacts and CMA information all in one place!!
Whilst being fairly new to Active Rain...like many we feel a certain affection for the network.. it alfter all promotes knowledge and best practice in our industry.
With a changing market it is more and more important to ensure a professional approach to Real Estate and Real Estate Investing. Mortgages are complex financial products which effect most peoples lives for many years. - All the more reason to seek the best advice.
With many people seeking to be homeowners in the US this market slowdown will be temporary. It needed to happy, it has forced a change in our industry, if the professionals want to get on the bandwagon they will be ready for the new market, if the do not then they will be unprepared for the times ahead.
Through Real Estate technology such as blogging and using the internet to market you and your homes the industry is becoming more dynamic. Even using Active Rain is part of a Real Estate company's internet marketing.
People are doing their research before contacting a Realtor whereas years ago to find out information on the homebuying process or the neighborhood they would contact their local Realtor first.
Once the storm is over...Lets look forward to the Boom Times Ahead!
When blogging, content is important, on active rain content should be made to fit the group you are posting to... or should it?
Why not set up a group first and then write about what you want to write about!!
The group system is great, but I got myself into a little trouble recently by posting to a group about content that was probably only 90% relevant to the group....i got comments and readers (all positive) until one set of comments was from (unknown to me at the time) was from the creator of the group who was scathing of the post!!
We all make the odd mistake in blogging, however that is what makes it interesting...
I suppose what I could be saying is that, be careful what groups you join and what you post on there!
Active Rain's Role as a community based profile and networking site has not and will not go unnoticed on the web, as its presences and popularity grows from great SEO results and new members spreading the word it is interesting to think about active rain's future.
Ok, I have blogged before about the MySpace curve and how big will active rain could go, but maybe it is deeper than that, MySpace after all was purchased for a whopping $580 million (ok, it was a package deal with some other Internet businesses thrown in) and the founder of Facebook has been offered a rumoured $1-$1.6 billion from Yahoo - but refused! Also, do not forget Google Purchasing the great video community that is 'the tube' (YouTube for the unknowing) for nearly $1 billion.
With all these 'Millions and Billions' Floating around for 'Virtual Real Estate' - Lets not even go into the 'Second Life' Avatar online communities where ''Online-Realtors'' have set up shop. I must pose the question.. How much is Active Rain worth? To its community members it is priceless...but what if a media mogul or tech-tycoon came up and said.. I want to buy that...How much would it be worth? Lets face it there is very little actual physical real estate in the transaction..its the online presence and SEO rather than the real world presence...maybe another target for Google?!! - "Google Rain" anyone? Perhaps it might be bought with another site such as Zillow to create an awesome Real Estate Professional and Consumer Community and Resource? After all active rain thrives because of its independence!
I suppose the question is not how much.. but when, inevitably whoever owns Active Rain now... will most likely eventually sell it...maybe when there is a million members? Who Knows.. it is an interesting thought for the future...
This 'Local Government' is run by one entity, Disney who has decided that it will not enact the Tax Cut
Reedy Creek improvement District is a local Government that covers around 25,000 acres and is a city in itself, it covers most of Walt Disney world and some of the associated businesses and properties surrounding it. The entity is chaired by Disney and has an oprating budget of $52 million, they have told the Orange County Property Appriaser that it will not be enacting the property tax cuts as it would wipe $1.2 million from that budget.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District runs an ambulance service amongst other things such as building inspections amongst other services for Disney. With 67,000 cast members working for Walt Disney World the district needs to run itself like a city!
Other cities have voted to skip the tax cut proposals but Reedy Creek doesn't stand to cause much of a problem by doing so as the Board of Supervisors which controls the Government of Reedy Creek is made up of 5 seats and Disney pays 90% of the property tax collected and as the largest landowner gets to say who sits on the board! This quirk of local politics is most interesting.
N.B For the uninitiated, Reedy Creek was re-named to what is now known as Lake Buena Vista.
I have just logged on and noticed that Active Rain now has dead on 42,000 members! This is fantastic news, it appears that the community averages just under 1000 new members a week!
Will it follow the MySpace Curve, a great success that has a growth rate that eventually levels off? Who knows! In our previous post I theorized on what would become of Active Rain in the future!
With around 1.7 million licensed Real Estate Agents in the USA (500k in California!) there could easily be a million realtors on active rain add on mortgage brokers as well as title companies and more there could be 2 or 3 million active rain profiles in just a few short years!
After initial rumours of delays launch officials have confirmed this morning again that the launch will go ahead as planned tomorrow, Wednesday August 8th at an planned launch time of 6.36pm Eastern Time (5 hours behind the UK's British Summer Time)
The mission, STS-118 will deliver another section to the ISS in its continued construction. The mission will also be the first to use a wireless tile inspection device, saving the crew from manually checking the tiles before re-entry.
As on our previous post you can visit NASA.gov and listen to Mission Audio over the internet (Windows Media Player Required) or watch the NASA public TV channel over the net to keep up to date on the mission.
We all wish the crew the best of luck and god speed!
Orlando, Florida as you have never seen it before! Google Maps has had the street level feature before for certain large cities such as New York but now the great minds that are Google have 'done' Orlando.
Their photography has stretched from I-4 Near Champions Gate all the way to Daytona Beach, the US 192, where it ends at Clermont South and in Melborne on the Coast, Through the winding streets of Celebration to the High Rise SkyScrapers in Downtown Orlando.. they have covered so much!
This something not to be missed out on. Check it out today!
Anywhere there is a blue line is where you can zoom in and go to street level. Navigating through the streets can be slow but it is so interesting! What a great feature if you are considering a home here! They even stretch up to the towns in North Central Florida, Tavares, the Seat of Lake County as well as Historic Mount Dora.
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Timely news and information about real estate, mortgages, and rentals in the greater Orlando, Florida area.
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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