Audra Shuster - Mortgage Professional Invited and Accepted

Audra Shuster is one of the best mortgage professionals I have ever worked with.

Audra has over 14 years experience as a loan officer in Orlando, and works with SunTrust Bank. We first met when we lived in Orlando and Audra was working with another lender, doing loans for builders. Due to her expertise, SunTrust Bank hired her to work with their high end builders doing construction perm loans.

Audra still did loans for us that were not construction perms or new consruction, and we were never disappointed. She had the best processor and no balls were ever dropped.

Audra accepted the invitation to join Active Rain and I hope she will come back and share her great wealth of information with us. Audra, thanks for accepting my invitation and  I look forward to you learning and sharing here in the Rain!

SEO - A Visual Aid

If you've spent any time here in the Rain, you no doubt have come across various posts about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Bloggers are cautioned to write first, and SEO next to avoid stiff, unreadable posts. After all, if your reader doesn't like your content, they will be off to another site and your SEO will be in vain. Some people say you should have your keywords one time in every 100 words  and some say to put them in the title, the first sentence, the last sentence, and somewhere in the middle.

If you use photographs or other images, that is a good opportunity for some extra keyword juice. Just be careful not to do "keyword stuffing" which renders your post lifeless and spiders penalize you when they recognize this tactic.

Do you want an easy way to get an idea of how prominent your keywords are in your post? 

Make a Wordle! Wordles are clouds of words that can be rearranged and given different color combinations. They are very fun and you know right away if your keywords are prominent enough in the post.

Here is an example of balanced keywords. Note that the most prominent words are Jacksonville Average heated Sq. Ft. List Price and sales price. Those are the words we were optimizing for in this post.

Here is an example where I typed in the keywords over and over to make the words stand out for the Wordle. I used this as an image in a post written for Search Engine Optimization.

NOTE: If your words show up this big when you make a Wordle to check your keywords and you didn't do it intentionally, guess what? You have keyword stuffed your post.

You can check your SEO and make an image to put in your post at the same time.

How Do I Pick Blog Topics

One way I pick blog topics is to answer questions that people have asked via email, phone or in person.

One popular topic is short sale and foreclosure information. For example, a buyer who is moving here wanted to know the average list price to sales price ratio for such properties.

The results are rather surprising - the average Jacksonville foreclosure and short sale list to sales price ratio for short sales is 94% and for foreclosures 96%. Interestingly, the results for all sales in the Jacksonville area are 91.5%. What this indicates is that short sales and foreclosures are aggressively priced closer to their market value. This educates the Buyer not to waste time making low ball offers that won't be accepted.

I took it one step further and made it hyper local to determine the average Fleming Island foreclosures and short sale list to sales price ratio.

The Buyers are coming this month, so I updated the Fleming Island report. This is just one example of how a simple question by a Buyer or Seller can result in a great blog topic - and one that can be ongoing.

Just think, if you have 20 or so posts that repeat themselves every month, you can have a robust blog without having to 'reinvent the wheel' every month. Fill it in with the times that you are inspired to write and you will be blogging almost every day of the month!

Active Rain University - Proper Use of Links in Blog Posts

I must admit that I thought this class was going to be about back linking, but Bob presented a class that was even more relevant to my blog posts. He challenged me to get to work on my IDX and make it pay for itself :) If you read on, it may challenge you.

Here are the most important pieces I took away from the hour+ that Bob spent with us.

Some important terms to understand -

Title Tag - these are the words that show up in the tab at the top of your site on every page. Make sure these words reflect what is on the page - title tags match anchor text, match content on page.
Anchor Text - this is what you highlight in your blog that becomes a link to something else
Open in New Window - Do this when you are creating a link and you want the reader to come back to your original landing page
Open in Same Window - Do this when you don't care if they come back to where they found you; you have them where you want them, on your IDX site
Framed - when an IDX page is framed, the search engines can't read anything that is in the page
Indexable - this is an unframed page and search engines, aka spiders, can read and index what is on the page.

Tips -

1. When you have multiple links with good anchor text on your page, the spiders will click from link to link trying to find a way out of the page. While clicking, they will read and index the page.
2. Beware - more is not necessarily good. From the previous sentence, you might think, "Well, then I want lots of links on each page." It's more important to have a few with pinpoint precision relevant to the content on the page than a 100 random links.
3. Some spots where you should remember to add links - Signature at the end of each blog; Links area on the right hand side of your Active Rain blog.
4. Want to know how to make "buttons?" Go to cooltext.com Buttons are great to add in your signature and also to highlight a special offer.

Even though the class focused mainly on IDX and how to use it, the same is true for linking from your blog to a post on your website, or from a new post to an old post. This is called "deep linking" and Google likes it. It makes your post more robust and appear more authoritative. As explained above, the spiders index the links on the way out and your post will rank higher because of it.

One last point - make it EASY for people to find houses on your site. Too many clicks and they will be gone. So make your Anchor Text specific and if possible, take the reader to exactly what the text says. If it says "Short Sales in Seattle" - the reader wants to see those homes, not click, set up a search for short sales and click again to reach the homes.

Regina Kloosterman - Your Marketing Virtual Assistant

Last year I invited Regina to join Active Rain. A couple of Active Rain members had asked who did some graphics and a landing page for me on Facebook, and I referred them to Regina. It just seemed natural that she should be a member here so others could know about what a great job she does.

Last year when 'Surviving Your Serengeti' came out, I was sending 'What Animal Am I' to everyone I knew. When Regina sent me her results, it wasn't really a surprise. She is a Cheetah! It nailed her. She is very fast. I never worry about her doing virtual work for me because I am sure that I get more than my money's worth because she is so fast that she can do more than most people in the same amount of time. In fact, when she worked in our office with us, there were many times when she caught up with what we asked her to do and we had to look around for more for her to do :)

If you are considering a Virtual Assistant, I would not hesitate to recommend Regina. In fact, in 2011 as part of a sort of co-op of agents grouping together to refer business, organize our business, and help each other out, we 'shared' her with the group and they have been thrilled with both her work ethic and her creativity.

Did I mention that she is creative? Definitely! Just look at the graphics she created for our database. She also figured out how to do Pagemodo on Facebook and created a landing page on our Live the Fleming Island Lifestyle page.

If you want to take your marketing to the next level and/or need help with marketing your listings and staying on top of Top Producer (yes she knows TP), then I highly recommend Regina to you. So glad she accepted my invitation and hope this will encourage her to participate here.

Eagle Harbor Market Report January 2012- Single Family Homes

84 Active Single Family Homes

147 Single Family Homes Sold 1/1/2011-1/31/2012

 The absorption rate* for Eagle Harbor Single Family Homes is 6.9 months.

*This means that it will take 6.9 months for all the Active homes (84) to sell if no other homes come on the market.

This number is down from 7.3 months in September.

 A balanced market is between 6-7months of inventory, so Eagle Harbor is entering a balanced market.

If we do not have many more distressed properties come on the market, then prices in Eagle Harbor will continue to stabilize.

Eagle Harbor is a golf community with 2800+ homes, everything from condos to waterfront homes, one of the best tennis programs in the area, three water parks and five day docks. There is a public boat ramp right by the community and RV/boat storage (based on availibility). Schools are all A-rated, with Fleming Island Elementary in the neighborhood. Clay County Soccer Fields are next to the School. Basketball, Volleyball, and Playgrounds throughout Eagle Harbor are just a few more of our amenities. Our full-time Activities Director plans wonderful activities for every age group. Shopping and restaurants are right outside our community - and we even have our own movie theatre on Fleming Island.

Eagle Harbor homes have held their value more than many other Jacksonville communities, and if the decline in inventory stays where it is, then prices will not only stabilize but may begin increasing again

Fleming Island Foreclosures and Short Sales Market Update

A buyer who wants to move here asked the average % list to sales price. Since they are coming in February, we updated this report. Here are the results, which we hope will be helpful to our readers.

What we found interesting is the average list to sales price of 96% for foreclosures and 94% for short sales, is actually a tighter ratio than that for all types of sales in the Jacksonville area, which is currently at 91% (still down from 94% a couple of months ago). This was reported to be 89% in the newspaper, but the stats for this area are 91%. the 89% was for the entire Jacksonville area.

Short Sales are selling for an average of 11% more than foreclosures in the Fleming Island market.

What these numbers tell us is that foreclosures and short sales are being priced close to market value, so Buyers should take notice that as a rule, properties are priced competitively and not to waste their time making wild low ball offers doomed for rejection. 

Foreclosures

# Active Listings 7 

# Sold Listings 55

Average List Price $187,927

Average Sold Price $180,413

Sale/List Price Ratio 96%

Average Approx. Heated Sq. Ft. 2,332

Average List $/Approx. Heated Sq. Ft. $78.69

Average Sold $/Approx. Heated Sq. Ft. $75.76

Average Days On Market 93

Average Continuing Days On Market 138 (all the Days On Market, including when a listing expires and renews with a new list number)

Short Sales

# Active Listings 69

# Sold Listings 82

Average List Price $233,355

Average Sold Price $219,533

Sale/List Price Ratio 94%

Average Approx. Heated Sq. Ft. 2,473

Average List Price $/Approx. Heated Sq. Ft. $90.10

Average Sold $/Approx. Heated Sq. Ft. $85.26

Average DOM  191

Average CDOM  236 (all the Days On Market, including when a listing expires and renews with a  new list number)

Fleming Island Market Report Sales Year Over Year January 2011-2012

The Fleming Island area of Jacksonville Florida is experiencing a decrease in inventory this year, and an increase in sales in some categories, as compared to sales from the same period in January 2010-2011. Let's compare Single Family Home Sales and Townhouse Sales for the same time period between January  2010-2011 and January 2011-2012.

Single Family Homes

Sold 1/31/10-1/31/11

314 Sold Single Family Homes
  46 Foreclosures
  70 Short Sales

37% total distressed properties sold

What this means to a Buyer or Seller, is that over 35% of the time you were competing or comparing with a distressed property, either short sale or foreclosure. The chance that an appraiser would have to use a distressed sale was 37% of the time.

Townhouses Sold 1/31/10-1/31/11

  58 Townhouses SOLD
  9   Foreclosure
  5   Short Sale

24% distressed properties sold

Single Family Homes Sold 1/31/11-1/31/12

340 Single Family Homes
 54 Foreclosure
 76 Short Sale

38% distressed properties sold

Townhouses Sold 1/31/11-1/31/12

40 Townhouses Sold
  1  Foreclosure
  6  Short Sale

18% distressed properties sold

What this means to a Buyer or Seller, is that over 38% of the time you are competing or comparing with a distressed property for single family homes, and 18% of the time for townhomes, either short sale or foreclosure. The chance that an appraiser will have to use a distressed sale is 38% for single family homes or 18% for townhomes of the time. It is interesting to note that this is reducde from 43% for single family homes and 21% for townhomes from the September 2011 report.

There is a 8% increase of single family home sales in 2012 versus the same time period in 2011. Inventories are down and the % of distressed properties sold is about the same for single family homes, but has reduced for distressed properties. Let's watch for a trend to see if prices are truly stabilizing in 2012.

If you are thinking of selling or buying on Fleming Island, please give us a call. We are ready to help with up to the minute information about Fleming Island homes for sale.

Welcome Bob Caldwell to Active Rain!

Let's welcome Bob to our Active Rain community! Bob joined us recently and has over 30 years in the mortgage industry to share. Bob is from La Plata, Maryland, which is in Charles County. He has done a nice job on his Profile and has some really great recommendations from former clients. Good job, Bob! Your readers and future clients will love reading these.

Bob has been a VA Loan Specialist, so I'm sure he can write some really helpful posts on VA loans to both consumers and real estate professionals who have buyers doing a VA loan. Bob works with Monarch Mortgage and says he is known both for his expertise and his ability to solve problems. Sounds like the kind of loan officer any agent would love to be working with!

He recently wrote a post asking what he should write about. Why don't you jump on over and give him some suggestions, along with welcoming him to the Rain?

Weltanschauung - ActiveRain's Worldview #5

'We believe that the constructive dialogue at ActiveRain fosters transparency among consumers about the industry.
We understand that ActiveRain plays a key role in demonstrating the integrity and professionalism of those engaged in our industry.'

Have you been a member of other forums, listservs, etc.? I have and was afraid to say much for fear of having my virtual hand slapped. There was not much room to explore and grow.

What a breath of fresh air to join ActiveRain and experience a world of transparency where professionals bantered back and forth and disagreed at times, but almost always with respect for each other. Granted, there are a few really negative people who just can't help but cross the line of decency and civility, and for that there is the Delete button controlled by the writer.

Make no mistake, the public is reading us. Your co-workers are reading, your clients, present and past are reading, and your future clients are reading. Your neighbors and friends are probably reading too, if they know you have a blog. They are learning about you and your peers who comment on your posts. They are seeing first hand what and how ActiveRain handles sticky wicket situations and how the members, especially you, handle them.

What I so like and appreciate is the fact that when things take a negative turn on a blog, the Staff is quick to weigh in with an approach that is both firm and fair. Do I always agree? Not always, but do I accept it? Yes, because in my experience, they represent the values of a giving and caring "pay it forward" leadership that leads by example. They are the voice of reason when emotions overtake a situation.

Being a member here for the past 4+ years has fostered growth in my real estate career that I just can't imagine any other way. ActiveRain has become a power house resource for industry professionals and consumers alike. It wouldn't have happened without our Weltanschauung.