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active rain: Active Rain Coincidence... What a Surprise! - 05/23/12 11:57 PM
Life is always full of surprises. A week ago I have received a call from a fellow Rainer. She was looking for a condo-hotel in Daytona area, and asked me whether I could work with her. She came on Tuesday with her daughter, and we spent a few hours on Tuesday looking at condo-hotels. When I thought that they had enough of them, we agreed that they will think about what they saw and we will talk in the morning. Turned out they had more energy than I thought, and went on their own to Hawaiian Inn, which was not on
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active rain: Mike Cooper. AR Rising Star. - 05/18/12 08:16 PM
I have been on AR for some time and I watched people leaving and people coming. Everyone is different. Some come unnoticed, and then their stars line up and they start shining, and some enter AR orbit with enough light and speed to be immediately noticed. I think Mike is that star. We met today in my office and then had lunch at Zen Bistro, a local tiny Thai Restaurant. I thought I know Mike from his very impressive blog posts, but I did not read his “about me” page until just now, and I regret it. There is so much
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active rain: A Mentor To Sensei - 05/13/12 10:27 PM
When I read Dick Greenberg’s Sensei/Grasshopper - An April Challenge! I knew that I did not need to ask if anyone needed my help. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I have known Alex Lopouchanski for probably 6 years now. It all started when we were working with a client, who was illegal alien, and had difficult time getting a mortgage, and after two powerful mortgage brokerages failed, the Buyer came to me with an ad from the Russian newspaper and asked me to call the guy. I was more than skeptical, but called. He managed to get
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active rain: My Fierce Competitor... Congratulations! - 03/11/12 10:08 PM
If you go to Leaderboard in Florida, you will see that my fierce competitor is Gabe Sanders from Stuart, Florida. Interestingly, there is something in common between us besides being older males. We are both Jewish (even though I am not religious), and we are both immigrants, who came from Eastern Europe. He – from Hungary. I – from the Soviet Union. Of the two, he is much smarter, because he came in 1956, and it took me way too long to get out of the Soviet Union. So, Gabe in America realized his American dream, while I in America realized
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active rain: Habits of Successful Bloggers - 03/09/12 06:58 AM
Life is not as fair as we might want it to be. There are many bloggers on AR. Some are more successful and some are not so much. Time from time I run into ... not very successful bloggers complaining that they do not see the expected results from their blogging. Often times when I go and check the profile of the member complaining, it is incomplete. It is not that it is short, it is that you see that the member did not take time to complete all the boxes in Profile page, and did not delete the prompt text there, so after
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active rain: How To Successfully Write For Google - 03/04/12 09:34 PM
How To Successfully Write For Google I was reading Andrea Swiedler’s blog post It's all a matter of taste and style... style and taste... I like Andrea's blogs. i like that she is not a marketing machine, even when she claims she is. And usually I agree with her. She wrote about the art of writing good blogs, and she said: “And then you must be sure you write for Google too, don't forget that. If you don't write for Google, the chances of anyone finding you are slim to none.” This shows the importance of writing for Google. So, how
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active rain: The Point of Million Points - 03/04/12 11:48 AM
Clicked "My Home" and noticed that I crossed 1,000,000 AR points mark. A long, exhaustive and exhilarating journey. I first created a profile on AR in February 2007, but then forgot about it and came back in September 2007. For me it was an excellent source of information. I quickly figured that it is better than any classes. It still is. I did not expect any business form AR. I did not do much in terms of real estate. I wrote about everything, even real estate, but very little in terms of market reports, or localism posts. After two years I
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active rain: Wow! My Midnight Is Now 3 AM - 02/17/12 09:17 PM
Wow, I was rushing to post comments before the minute hand passes midnight, and my comment came right at 12:00. I wanted to see if it still made in or it went to a new day, and to my surprise saw, that the time stamp shows 9 PM. How come? It is midnight, and the stamp is 9 PM? And then I remembered that AR moved to new servers, and judging by the time stamp they are not on the East coast, but on the West coast, which how it was a couple of years ago. What it means is
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active rain: Stole It? Sorry, You Are Protected - 02/13/12 02:03 AM
Well, the sight of 10 blog posts coming in rapid-fire manner right after the hand of the clock moves past midnight to Monday is not surprising. The fact that that these posts are plagiarized is not surprising. Rapid-fire is a good warning sign… usually wasted. The “author” is not Russel Ray, so he can do whatever he wants… even write War and Peace… The fact that AR is resisting to either return to the flag system, which made it easier to report problems with blogs (not with comments), or offer something not much worse, is not surprising, of better say, no
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active rain: Folks, It Ain't a Phone, It Is a Banana... - 02/13/12 12:00 AM
Very often I would blog about something and get surprised that there is comment coming the very moment I click submit. Often times, however, I notice that the comment is not to the blog post, but to the Title, and has little or no relevance. We are all in a constant rush, and blogging is the activity, where we are not to read, enjoy, but rather grasp and move. It is an exercise in speed in the first place. No question we lose something. It is a different quality of communication. We are more concerned with the process, than the
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active rain: Who Needs A Shrink? - 02/07/12 12:11 AM
Nobody loves the government. Even Real Estate agents… Real estate agents do not like what government is doing… Real Estate agents are smarter than the government… Maybe, maybe, maybe… May be not… I think that we on AR mirror the “big” government.We just do not notice it. Take so popular challenges on AR, especially those serial challenges, running for weeks and months. When the government comes with a stimulus (challenge) with a lot of dough (points), it works poorly. I wrote that, then stumbled on “it works poorly” and then figured that this is a senseless phrase. The exact statement
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active rain: Good Wine Has To Age to Be Appreciated - 02/06/12 01:03 AM
This is not a rant. This is just an observation. This is something that everyone has to overcome here on AR. When you join and start blogging, you have great ideas, you write entertainingly, there is substance and there is form… and there are few or no readers… So freaking frustrating… You write a post, and get a couple of comments, and then you read another post about the same issue, and it has 30-40 comments, or it is featured, and the comments are in hundreds. And it is no better than yours, or worse… And nobody talks to you…
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active rain: My Old AR Friends - 01/29/12 11:50 PM
Suzanne McLaughlin posted I Said Goodbye Today to a Lot of Old Friends.... Excellent blog. She made me think about those who I subscribed to in my time on AR.She inspired me to write this blog post. I have less than half of Suzanne’s number of members, who I subscribed to. When I go to AR, I am looking at dashboard first and comment on blogs that caught my attention. When the dashboard is just listings and market reports, then I turn to my subscription list and read and comment on the posts. And yes, on my list the "oldest" post
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active rain: Are We Neighborhood Resource? - 01/29/12 11:14 PM
Are we really a neighborhood resource? Do people go to Active rain to find out the move schedule, or the local Laundromat’s hours of operation? Or the menu of the nearby cafe? What I often see is that these blogs are not even incorporated in a bigger picture. For example, I could understand a blog about the neighborhood and within the blog references to the establishments there. But a blog, which only has the movie shows schedule? Do you go to Active Rain when you search for this information, or you are like me and you just Google it? Or
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active rain: Can't Trust MLS - 01/22/12 11:30 PM
There was plenty said about abusing MLS, but this keeps happening. A couple of days ago I was preparing for a market report. And in “active” I noticed 4 listings for the same condo unit, all listed on the same day. It was already nearly a week ago, so if that was a mistake at posting, the agent had more than enough time to correct. I avoided saying "identical listing", as there is a difference. In two listings the description, which is quite minimal, mentions a hot tub, and on two others it doesn’t. Well, anyway, it is not a unit
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active rain: Knock, Knock, Knock... - Who Is This? - Open The Door. This is Internet - 01/22/12 11:45 AM
Gary Coles posted Get Connected in the Rain It is an interesting post about Active Rain. But what surprised me was that Gary transitions from Active Rain connections to telephone conversations, and for him it is still within Active Rain, and it is not so for me. To an extent I am surprised that we never really embraced the medium – Internet the way it is designed. Internet is the connection. It is not a step to go to another medium – phone. It is its own world with its own rules. Seeing it as a bridge to a physical personal
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active rain: What Does it Mean To Be An Active Rain Ambassador? - 01/12/12 10:19 PM
What DOES it mean to be an Active Rain Ambassador? Niki Parekh posted a blog post with this title, then Alan May used the same title and wrote the most hilarious post on the topic. Read it, use the link above, it is funny and clever. At least now I know the reason the servers were darn slow all this time since Alan got on board… Reading comments was a blast as well. I learned so much about the requirements to become an Ambassador, I never thought it was so darn difficult to make a cut… Yes, I received the
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active rain: How To … - 01/07/12 10:28 PM
I often run into blogs with titles starting with “How to…”. I must admit that AR proved to be an excellent resource. Just remember posts by Brad Andersohn, Katerina Gasset, Craig Daniels and so many others. Along with those, there are blogs with “How to…” in the title, but when you click, all you get is just general BS about planning what you are going to do, buying the right stuff, using only the right ingredients, and hire professionals. But not what they claim in the title. So, if the title is “How to paint a house”, do not expect
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active rain: See You In Court... - 12/14/11 01:01 AM
I was at the County Court today. It is in DeLand, a small quaint town, our county seat… It was a tax Deed sale auction, and there were a few properties that were of interest to my investors. The hall, where they conduct the sales, was packed. Besides the seats at the table, people were sitting on the floor and standing along the walls. I know about half of the faces there, We see each other pretty often, even though I am not the one who goes there regularly. I only go when there is something of interest, and when
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active rain: RealEstate.com Gold Rush - 12/09/11 10:13 PM
There is a lot of buzz on AR about RealEstate.com. The guys are actively selling the ownership of a whole city. Sounds enticing. So, I am on RealEstate.com. I type “Daytona Beach”. Then in property type I pick “Condo/ Townhouse” 18 results. 5 of those are condo-hotels, which is a very different animal. 4 are not in Daytona Beach, but in Daytona Beach Shores, and 1 in South Daytona, which is clearly stated in the address. So far we have 8 out of 18, which are actually in Daytona Beach, and are condos/townhouses. Daytona MLS shows 225 condos/townhouses in Daytona Beach
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Jon Zolsky, your Daytona Beach, Florida connection
Daytona Beach,
FL
More about me
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL. FunCoast Realty, 386-405-4408
Address: 313 S Atlantic Ave., Suite A, Daytona Beach, FL, 32118
Office Phone: (386) 255-5355
Cell Phone: (386) 405-4408
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