The XBroker

Google Mortgage

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:02:40 -0500

Lots of buzz regarding the lawsuit Lending Tree has initiated versus Mortech, producer of mortgage rate pricing software, for apparently licensing their technology to Google for a service that will compete with Lending Tree…from Yahoo Finance:

LendingTree filed a lawsuit yesterday against Mortech, Inc., a technology provider, for violating its contract with LendingTree. According to the lawsuit, Mortech, whose technology helps automate lender offer pricing, violated its contractual covenants by partnering with Google to launch an online mortgage loan aggregator service similar to LendingTree.

So, apparently Google is going to enter the public mortgage quote comparison arena and soon, some sources indicate as early as next week.

Google Merchant Search (old news) looks to be the initial model. Screen shot of UK Google Merchant Search provided by rustybrick on Flickr h/t to Search Engine Land

The screen shot shows some very basic mortgage search and comparison factors, using very limited data sets and range values. Nothing all that sexy, mainly an advertising play for participating lenders not unlike the Bankrate’s of the world. Google has stated in response to the lawsuit (From the NYT):

We’re constantly looking for new ways to help people find what they are looking for on the Internet. As part of that effort, we are currently working on a small ad unit test that will run against a limited number of mortgage-related search queries in the U.S.

Meh. Actions speak louder than spin. As Lending Tree and Mortech go through their legal gymnastics, lets ponder the ramifications of the 1000 pound gorilla entering the room…

Google tends to enter sectors of business on the light side (see Google Base for real estate), choosing to keep things very simple (at first). Nonetheless Google has the power to alter the way industries function, especially when it comes to information exchange and spook the hell out of the targeted sector along the way. Real estate as a business and listing syndication propose far more complex issues and requires a relatively high level of human interaction (physical inspection of properties, local area knowledge, property is not a commodity etc) compared to mortgage rate quoting and pricing. Mortgage rates are commodities whose price can be accurately be delivered to a consumer entering accurate information using some relatively simple algorithms and a database…something Google is pretty good at.

So, Google is looking to license some pretty robust rate pricing software, the type which mortgage brokers and bankers use and depend on in their day to day business. Does Google offer indigenous rate pricing software to loan originators using their service? It makes a ton of sense as it would increase the accuracy and thus the validity of the service. How much control they allow loan originators over the mortgage pricing data being displayed to consumers is the big question in my mind. I have my opinions…can you hear me in Mountain View? Give me a call, I’d love to chat

It would seem that Zillow Mortgage Marketplace (ZMM) would have the most heartburn over this news since the similarities are obvious. ZMM is primarily a niche advertising/publishing/search platform that allows consumers to anonymously get mortgage quotes based on financial and credit risk factors from participating loan officers. Approved pricing engines tie into ZMM’s API to generate automated quotes on behalf of the mortgage professional using one of these systems to automatically respond to consumers. ZMM’s auto-quoting platform is mostly a convenience/efficiency perk for participating loan officers trying to deal with thousands of voyeuristic consumer rate quote requests.

Is there a benefit in hosting your own pricing engine over tying in APIs from third party services? I think so. Rather than being beholden to third party data aggregators and maintaining these multiple information pipes pulling from essentially the same resources for hundreds of loan officers, why not streamline things even further and eliminate what is an unnecessary information middle man? I’m marginally surprised ZMM hasn’t done this yet…who knows, maybe they will. Maybe they should. Yes, they should…like right now.

Lending Tree’s primary revenue stream comes from the origination of mortgages, something that wouldn’t appear to be in Google’s wheelhouse, yet as stated, Lending Tree is maintaining via the lawsuit against Mortech that Google will directly compete with them.

Maybe this has something to do with Lending Tree’s heartburn: Google is hiring a Mortgage Backed Security analyst.

If Google is looking to invest their cash reserves in MBS’s for internal returns, will they also look to move the market?

The XBroker...

Drug Cartels, Cancerous Growth and The F*cked Mortgage Industry

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:53:15 -0500

Who is to blame for the housing and mortgage markets undoing depends on who you ask. Consumers blame everyone, brokers blame banks, banks blame brokers, appraisers are in the cross-hairs, even real estate professionals are not immune to the finger pointing...I think Michael Jackson had something to do with it all, but I can't prove that.

We need to blame someone, so I ask the echo chamber: Who were the architects and engineers that created and enabled all of 'this'? Before I answer, lets use the drug trade for my first analogy.

First loan is for free...

Who are the real criminals in the illicit drug trade? The users, the street level pushers, or the cartels who manufacture and make the drugs available aka The Enablers? One could make legitimate arguments that all are to fault for varying degrees. If users didn't use, pushers couldn't push and manufacturers would be out of business cause there is no demand for the product...yet that's more tail wagging the dog. IMHO thou who enables is at the root of fault.

In theory, if the enablers didn't produce the illicit product in the first place, there would be no pusher or user. The banks and other institutions who engineered the easy to acquire, downright addictive financial products framed an environment where unchecked growth dominated, deceit was rewarded and ethical business practitioners were punished.

Unchecked Growth is Bad, mmkay?

Follow me into more analogymnastics...What is uncontrolled growth called in the human body? Cancer. Without an internal system of checks and balances and proper detection techniques cancer manifests silently, usually until its too late when the organism has been consumed, ravaged to (near) death. You picking up what I'm putting down? Mortgage industry hell bent on growth until it consumed itself and imploded *pffft*

How is cancer treated? Traditionally with chemotherapy- an indiscriminate, very thoughtless killer of all things living. Wipe everything out and hopefully the body regenerates enough good cells to recuperate. This is effectively what's happening to the mortgage industry- important aspects have been or are being primed for indiscriminate eradication. As nonsensical as mortgage qualification standards were just over a year ago, so are the proposed 'fixes' being introduced via legislation.

Self-medication is a bad idea, thus charging the same people who architected the demise of entire institutions with implementing a cure is a bad idea, mmmkay? Medicine has evolved by studying and understanding what makes organisms tick on very (very) micro levels- further, how small thoughtful changes in the right places can cause substantial improvements. Business, industry as a whole, needs to adopt similar methodologies of implementing micro-evolutionary change rather than blow it all away, Bruce Willis-Die Hard style.

We will protect you, promise.

What is currently being proposed by law makers as solutions to the mortgage mess is incestuous at best. These changes are couched as 'protective measures for the consumer', which is a bunch of bullshit, seeing that the new Home Value Code of Conduct (HVCC) and H.R. 1728's proposal to ban Yield Spread Premiums serve to do nothing of the sort. Instead they will (try to) eliminate the mortgage broker, compromise the real estate professional and ultimately harm the consumer...all for the banks gain.

Think that our policy makers in Washington wouldn't let such things happen? Think again...after all, they've invested heavily in these institutions that are 'too big to fail'.

Next: Review of the Home Value Code of Conduct (HVCC), H.R. 1728 and why they're bullets designed to kill off the mortgage broker.

Zillow Mortgage Marketplace Petitions To Eliminate Annual Percentage Rate

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:44:57 -0500

Zillow has added a very useful feature to their Mortgage Marketplace. True Cost Calculation as described by Mary Miller:

When comparing mortgage quotes, most borrowers focus on two factors: interest rate and upfront fees. But it’s difficult to determine whether it makes more sense to choose a loan with a lower rate and higher fees, or a loan with higher fees and a lower rate. The best combination depends on how long borrowers will have the loan.

….Once they narrow down to a few quotes, they can check out the lender profiles, reviews, and ratings, and then select a couple of lenders to contact.

Consumers have a hard time understanding the real financial ramifications of a mortgage and most loan officers fail to get into the breadth and depth of the potential true cost of a given loan scenario based on the unknown variable of how long the loan may actually be held. Annual Percentage Rate, the antiquated, often manipulated, more often misunderstood measure of how much a loan will cost a borrower has been prime for replacement.

Zillow has effectively provided a cleaner method for consumers to determine real loan cost by quickly crunching the long math after the variable of ‘loan term’ is figured into the equation, allowing consumers the ability to evaluate a loan in hard dollars rather than ambiguous percentages. This tightens a major loophole in regards to the consumer experience on ZMM and should lead to higher conversions for the most competitive participating loan officers.

Well thought by the big Z…

Also See:

Morning Mortgage Notes

Defining a Brand and Realizing Success Through Business Strategy

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:48:24 -0500

Comparing real estate to companies from very different industries (like Apple) when referencing how branding or marketing should be done is very en vogue and very misdirected. Highly successful ‘Big Brands’ are created in tightly controlled environments that have been developed over many years and are almost always backed by superior products or services.

The industry of real estate doesn’t quite lend itself to those conditions. Its generally a loose, revolving door, part-time hobbyist infected environment that yields a highly uncontrollable and thus poor product. As a result the biggest Brand in the space, ‘Realtor’, is currently in epic fail mode. Corporate Brands like Coldwell Banker, Re/Max, Keller Williams etc. mean far more to agents (favorable commission schedules, franchise fees, tools provided) than they do consumers.

A Brands persona will not change (or continue to mean anything) in the consumers eyes until the underlying business model, day to day practices and purveyors of such are commanded/committed to such. For too many traditional Brands, this is just not possible without the risk of alienating a majority of their contingency. To which I’d say: Good riddance.

With this in mind, a more relative comparison between Brands in the real estate space would be between the traditional names and Redfin, the Great Satan of real estate Brands. Redfin does what few others in this space do, they define their Brand through Business Strategy:

Focus (and follow up) on exemplary customer service. Hold agents accountable for their actions, or lack thereof.
Provide rich, relative, intuitive data. Consumers fundamentally are searching for listings first, all of them. Redfin provides many types: Traditional, For Sale By Owner, MLS and Bank listed foreclosures as well as Sold data.
Employ consumer centric business and revenue models based in logic rather than antiquity.
Remain unusually nimble and open to change, as opposed to standing still and posturing into irrelevancy.

Any agent that flies under their flag is bound by these principles…The Fin tightly controls this environment, developing an overwhelming positive experience for professionals and consumers along the way.

Can any other traditional Brand represent a 97% consumer satisfaction level? Do they even know how to measure such? Are they willing to try? Me thinks no. Is there great opportunity for those that dare? Absolutely.

While there are individual agents and brokers that practice and achieve success employing similar business ideals, they are far more the exception than the rule and are often lost amongst the ‘rest of the crowd’ in such a way that Corporate Brand actually diminishes their efforts, having to instead build and rely on Personal Brand.

When Redfin launched, many industry folk quickly dismissed the company as ‘another discount brokerage’ doomed to failure. Others have made it their personal vendetta to see that they stumble and fall…spooking, steering and slandering the Company as an impostor, a heretic…which must cause Mr. Kelman to smile more than just a little bit. Despite all the mud-slinging Redfin apparently is turning a profit (in a ‘down market’ nonetheless), coupled with their high consumer satisfaction ratings, they’ve become a testament to building a Brand via business strategy and the greater industry can’t stand it.

The real estate industry would be well served to study and implement the major aspects of what Redfin is proving out, as opposed to perpetually denying their validity. I’m not suggesting everyone breakout the Redfin blueprint and copy it verbatim, rather study their successes in comparison to the consumer voice which generally says that Realtors Suck. Too idealistic? Probably. Why? As suggested above, it would banish ~80% of actively licensed ‘real estate professionals’ to another industry because the bar would be raised off the floor. Not to mention that too much coin would be left on the table in the near term for many short sighted C-Suite traditionalists to stomach, though continuing down the current road is a proven path to irrelevancy and ultimately insolvency. Alas, suggesting that a business be run like a business is apparently crazy-talk…

While all the current rage resides with selling strategies that permeate the landscape with noisy propositions using ‘Social Media’ as some magic bullet to more business, what’s really broke and needs to be fixed first is The Business. Dumping time and dollars into Social Media, SEO, a new website or the next cool shiny thing to (re)define Brand in hopes of more business without refining the core to become more in-line with the changing, demanding, educated marketplace is just plain ignorant. They are utilities in the marketing tool belt, not long term solutions.

My 13 year old cousin could be a Social Media pundit. Wordpress (many a blogsite platform actually) provides 85% of the SEO, design elements and disparate data portability one will ever need…the rest is pimping out your ride…accessorizing, if you will (which is fine). Consistently refining fundamental business strategies, setting the bar higher with regards to agent acumen level, transparency and accountability will positively define a business, a Brand and an industry with an identity crisis.

Listen to Tomato Radio Today At 3pm PST: We're Getting a Behind The Scene Look At ActiveRain with Jeff Corbett (VP of Operations).

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:26:36 -0500

Take it easy on me if you call in to chat

Via Real Estate Tomato (Real Estate Tomato):

Listen in from 3 to 4pm PST to get a Behind the Scenes Look at the Real Estate Industry’s Largest Social Network, ActiveRain (About to eclipse 150K members).

Our guest, Jeff Corbett, is an old friend of the Real Estate Tomato, but more importantly, he is the VP of Operations and Business Development for ActiveRain.

He’s Bald, Bold and Brazen. and we’re hoping he’ll open up and give us the mud (dirt in the rain).

We will be talking with Jeff about:

His Role At AR
New AR Developments
AR’s Big Challenges and Possible Solutions
His thoughts on a Yogi Berraism: “Nobody goes there no more; it's too crowded!"
And more…

At 3:30 We will be taking your questions. Don’t hold back, we know you have a lot on your mind.

Listen Live: http://cli.gs/tb7u8t

Call In To Listen: (347) 884-9764

Call in with your questions. (347) 884-9764 (Then hit the #1 on the keypad to get our attn, and we'll bring you on live!)

There's a Chat Room too! http://cli.gs/tb7u8t

Yes, there will be a podcast in case you missed the live show... but being there is where it's at!

NAR Dipping Into The Mortgage Pool?

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Sat, 02 May 2009 23:25:14 -0500

Realtors Federal Credit Union

Jay Thompson wrote about the NAR's foray into the world of controlled finances over a year ago...Eric Stegemann brought the topic up while at RE BarCamp-Phoenix, indicating it was his understanding that after a few delays, its a go. Fascinating implications.

The largest trade organization in the United States, with all its lobbyist power, is for all practical purposes a lender. Yes, yes, NAR and the Realtors (INSERT COPYRIGHT SYMBOL HERE) Federal Credit Union (RFCU) are separate and apart in all the right places but I love the messaging coming off the article on realtor.org:

Because operations will be on the Internet, REALTORS^® FCU will be sensitive to the work habits and lifestyles of REALTORS^®, most of whom are independent contractors who are compensated by commissions.”

All REALTORS^® and their families are eligible to become REALTORS^® FCU members. REALTORS^® employees and staff, including NAR, state and local boards and associations, and NAR’s institutes, societies and councils are also eligible. REALTOR^® clients and customers, such and home buyers and home sellers, are not eligible.

Whats clear:

A year ago, pre-credit crisis, this was a borderline *yawn*, today its stands to be a pretty big deal. Access to a credit union is a real benefit, yielding -->credit<-- to its members using their own underwriting guidelines, separate and apart from Big Bank or gov't regulated programs.

Mortgages for those of self-employed and commission based income ilk don't (really) exist in the mainstream anymore. My opinion, which isn't usually positive when it comes to NAR's moves is just that, positive. RFCU stands to provide real benefits to the member contingency, substantiating the dues to be a Realtor (INSERT COPYRIGHT SYMBOL HERE).

Whats speculation:

Right now, clients and consumers are not eligible as the RFCU is careful to not trip the line hypocritic with their hard stance against banks getting into the real estate sales industry. But I can only wonder how 'Americas Largest Trade Orgaization' might choose to flex their lobbyist muscles in the future? NAR can actually compete with Big Bank lobbyists on Capitol Hill.

If the banks won't lend in a common sensical fashion (a common theory), then consumers can't buy...if consumers cant buy, then Realtors can't pay NARs dues...NAR loses income and voices...

Does this 'force' NAR's hands to get in the mortgage game? The argument is compelling and someone needs to check the Big Banks actions. The irony of NAR, recently accused of anti-competitive practices by the Dept of Justice, chipping away at The Banks increasing monopolistic nature would be great theater.

Do they push to allow clients access to RFCU mortgages? Now that's a neatly marketable reason of solid tangible value to use a Realtor (INSERT COPYRIGHT SYMBOL HERE).

(I know health benefits are important too...thats another subject for another day...)

Here We Go Again, DC Empowering the Big Banks (YSP Wars)

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:32:00 -0500

The same banks that recently used Mortgage Brokers as agents to sell their products are now trying to set an unfair playing field that will ultimately eliminate brokers from the lanscape.

If passed, H.R. 1728 would turn out to be an Epic FAIL that harmed the consumer and broker while lining the banks P&L...but thats just 'good business' I guess.

Via Novation Mortgage:

Say it isn't so! H.R. 1728 (did not get passed in the Senate the last time)

Let me explain this to you One More Time Brad Miller and Mel Watt. Side question: How does such an obviously beneficial to big banks and destructive to mortgage brokers legislation get introduced by Congressmen from a notrorious big banking area?

What Yield Spread Premium is NOT

Yield Spread Premium is not a unique and only way for loan officers to rip off home owners and home buyers (any more than any other way).
Yield Spread Premium is not something a mortgage broker can make up on their own.
Yield Spread Premium is not a secret - in fact by Federal Law (RESPA) it MUST be disclosed.
Yield Spread Premium is not by any stretch of the imagination "the" rip-off

Now, Brad Miller and Mel Watt, let me tell you how to rip people off:

Charge absolutely no Yield Spread Premium but instead get a lenders license and charge more than a broker would without having to disclose it. Do you even know this boys? Of course you do! How else would big banks be able to lobby you, or worse, and have you come up with such a damaging piece of legislation?

Loan officers of Federally chartered mortgage banks who HAVE NO YIELD SPREAD can rip off the people easier than any mortgage broker. Countrywide, Wells Fargo, Bank of America - none are required to disclose their back end profit and EVERY MORTGAGE BROKER IN AMERICA is required to disclose EVERY PENNY they earn. Not ONE direct lender is. Even small lenders are not required to disclose their earnings and one of the ways they are encouraged to become lenders, in fact one of the very first words out of the mouths of the Big Banks is: once you have a warehouse line and become a correspondent you won't have to disclose YSP anymore AND YOU CAN CHARGE AS MUCH AS YOU WANT BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE TO DISCLOSE!

I know this because I am not a broker - I am a LENDER. I do not have to disclose YSP. I could, if I were so inslimed ... er inclined ... "put the screws" to my borrowers. And guess what? You get rid of mortgage brokers and you'll only have lenders and lenders will be free to pillage. Why? No highly regulated competitors.

Some will say, "Ken, your over reacting." Okay, you're right. A few people are conspiring against my industry to make a law that will not keep even one person from being "ripped off" and at the expense of lower closing costs.

Why do I say lower closing costs? You know all those "no cost loans" you see advertised by people like Bank of America? Those are achieved by raising the interest rate in an amount commensurate with covering the closing costs. YES! Bank of America uses exactly the same tactic as ANY MORTGAGE BROKER. The difference? The broker is required by Federal law to call it YSP and disclose every penny of it. Bank of America? Not required to disclose it EVEN THOUGH IT IS THE SAME AMOUNT USED FOR THE SAME PURPOSE.

Okay, make it fair - either all originators disclose all of their revenue or none do. Why only require the mortgage broker to do so and not the banks? Oh, the National Association of Mortgage Brokers doesn't have pockets as big as those other organizations ... that's what I thought.

You know Georgia, and a couple of other states, have Fair Lending Acts which limit the amount of compensation to brokers REGARDLESS of the type of loan so long as it is a RESPA covered loan. Right now the biggest rip-off is revers mortgages. In Georgia a banker can make as much as they want by charging almost any interest rate they want and there is nothing the State can do about it because bankers do not disclose back-end compensation. Which is what makes all of these YSP related allegations and regulations about as moot as a breath in a whirlwind.

You are right - I hope I am over reacting enough to WAKE YOU UP!

Now if you read this far and you know anything about me you know I have long pushed for national licensing of ALL loan officers. This bill does not meet that requirement for, once again, does not require for every loan officer to be licensed. Nope, if you work for one of the big banks you won't need a license.

I had fun with text formatting on this article. Should have gone full HTML!

Behold The Sponsored Post

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:14:17 -0500

Starting Monday, April 20th 2009 the top position on the ActiveRain Feature Board will be available for paid sponsorship.

Sponsored Posts will run for 24 hour periods, 12:00:00am to 11:59:59pm.

Sponsors are welcome to sell/advertise their products and services in most any fashion they see fit, so long as they coincide with ActiveRains Terms of Use...in other words...no pornography, unauthorized use of copyrighted material etc

It will be interesting to see how sponsors use this valuable real estate to flex their creative marketing muscles...

Well, that's it!

Contact Chris Martin for pricing, availability and scheduling.

ActiveRain Launches Automated Network Advertising System

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:03:34 -0500

On 4/14/09 ActiveRain, under the dark of night, launched it's self-serve, automated network advertising system.

Here's how it works:

Anyone interested in advertising/sponsoring a 125 x 125 tile ad that will run in rotation on all non-blog pages in the ActiveRain network i.e. Login, Search, Groups. Blogs, My Home...may automatically create a campaign using our self serve interface. The ads run site wide, there is no ability to target to geographic region or by member type (for now).

The cost is $299.00 per slot per month, you may cancel at anytime.
There are 95 total available slots, each slot will run in even rotation with other sponsored slots.
Assuming all 95 slots are taken, each slot will deliver a minimum of ~70,000 impressions of your ad per month.
If all 95 slots are not taken, the exisitng slots will receive the excess traffic. For example, if only 47 slots are taken, each slot will deliver a minimum of ~140,000 impressions per month.
The lucky first movers will receive a bulk of the 8M+ page impressions.

<--Example Tile Ads on Search Page

How to sign-up

1) Look in the right sidebar of your My Home page or go to http://activerain.com/action/advertising

<--Convenient 'Advertise with AR' Linkage...

The 'Create a new advertising campaign screenshot':

2) Select the number of shares you would like (max 20).

3) Input the url where you would like anyone clicking your ad to land...Ex: http://www.yourlandingpage.com

4) Upload your creative ad. It must be 125 x 125 pixels in size and either be in a .jpg or .gif file format. No animated formats allowed.

5) Enter your credit card information and click Purchase. If you've already bought an ActiveRain product and used a credit card, this area will automatically populate with your billing information. To change your billing information click here.

Despite the fact your ad will appear in front of eyeballs literally hundreds of thousands of times, dont make the mistake of thinking that it's mere presence will equate to click through success. A few points for effective advertising in a 125 x 125 pixel box:

Keep your message simple and succinct. Your entire business value proposition/plan wont fit here.
Be compelling in your delivery. Do something remarkable. Give someone a reason to want to 'Learn More'. Think outside that 'box' everyone talks about.
Direct anyone who clicks your ad to a landing page that directly relates to the ad, preferably one where you can track how many inbound links you receive from the ad.
If an ad isn't pulling well, dont be afraid to change things up. Small differences in copy and/or layout can make a big difference.

**This advertising interface is intended and best served for Business to Business advertising, not Agent to Consumer advertising.

If you have any questions about advertising on AR, need help setting up a campaign or would otherwise just like to talk to a nice guy, contact Chris Martin: chris at activerain dot com

Yes, its true...this is yet another way in which ActiveRain hopes to monetize 'the site'. Hopefully no one is too repulsed or shocked into never returning to the network :)

Survey Says...Realtors Suck

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:41:16 -0500

The following post is simply one non-conformists opinion, albeit a relatively educated one...Its my hope that my words, cutting as they may come across, cause an epiphany for more than a few...

This entire post is based on The California Association of Realtors 2008 Home Seller Survey (released in July 2008, I just happened upon the PowerPoint presentation a few days ago) but the statistics are just as relevant today, if not more so...Granted this survey is but a snapshot of an industry, yet pictures are worth thousands of words...You can read the entire survey here. (All statistical references in this post are derived from the aforementioned survey).

Public perception of the real estate professional and the greater industry is amongst the lowest of any on record. Consumers are looking for an alternative to the 'traditional' Agent and they're defining what this alternative is, yet relatively very few professional are heeding this demand and actually providing a tangible solution. This Survey demonstrates to me that 90% of Agents are not providing what the consumer wants...and it is ALL ABOUT THE CONSUMER.

Personally I know alot of fantastic real estate professionals. Genuinely great people, passionate, always striving to better themselves, their clients, the industry they serve and represent...they're worth every penny they command...they dont suck...I'm just a sucker for a good title (no pun intended). I could fill this page dropping names like Jay Thompson, Kris Berg, Missy Caulk, Bill Gasset and 30 others nobody has heard of as examples of who I consider to be the vanguard of where this industry should look to as ministers of positive change. Unfortunately, they're in the minority and a few good apples don't ripen the bunch.

Agent Perception: I can Has Consumer!

Talk to most any real estate professional and they will tout their expertise, knowledge and marketing prowess as the main reason you should retain their services. Most will maintain that commission rates (should) mean very little to the consumer and they're worth every penny.

Consumer Reality: You Suck!

According to the respondents:

Number One factor considered when choosing an Agent? Lowest Commission.

Last reason? Most knowledgeable. <-- If this doesn't snap you into reality, nothing will.

You'd best start putting your knowledge out there if you hope to attract a client...get a blogsite that rocks, start dropping neighborhood knowledge, get a killer IDX solution...substantiate your value!! The days of being a prude with your listings and expertise until you had an executed contract are over.

I can find out more than you know.

~70% of respondents polled on 'Information from The Internet vs Information from Agent' indicated that the Net provided information that was as useful, 'different' or more useful than an Agent. I can only surmise that 'different' means information an agent couldn't or simply didn't provide. In the Age of Information, lack thereof is akin to being useless.

The ~31% that said The Net provided less useful information than an Agent are part of a 50% declining trend over the past 5 years.

You're still (a) very necessary (evil?).

~95% of respondent sellers still used an agent, which makes perfect sense. I often state that: While technology won't replace a good real estate Agent, the Agent that properly utilizes technology will replace Agent that doesn't.

Consider- 74% of 1st time respondent sellers considered not using an Agent, up 46% from 2007.

You can't market your way out of a brown paper bag.

Of the reasons given for using an Agent only 7% said it was for 'Better Marketing Exposure'. Ummm, isn't this what an Agent's core value proposition is supposed to be, to market property? Consumers clearly do not believe Agents can effectively market their property...yet online and offline marketing is the 1st and 3rd highest reason for choosing an Agent. This is a huge disconnect and opportunity at the same time.

84% of respondent sellers are searching online and 96% Agents polled use print advertising. Helllllooo!?! Can you say poor ROI, waste of money? Newspapers and other print media are going out of business because less and less people read them. Advertising in these dinosaurs is of almost no value going forward.

Only 57% of agents use multiple photos or a virtual tour as part of an online home listing. This just blows my mind. I'd guess that 50% of the 57% that actually use multiple photos look (kinda) like these:

Proper Feng Shui can do wonders for a small space.

Extra long chain for convenient access to light.

Sweet shower curtain stays with home!

Thanks to MLS Trash Can for the pictures. Descriptions by me.

Seriously, an agent who can't manage to market a property with quality photographs should have their license suspended on principle alone.

You're being perpetually judged.

97% of respondents interviewed 3 or more Agents. 50% interviewed 6 or more Agents. Consumers are getting more and more finicky about who they hire. Agents better step up how they present themselves. Better have an impressive resume and a killer suit = a slick engaging blogsite & robust IDX solution.

Here's a scary thought (depending on who you are):

Consumers are lurking on your blog, stalking your FaceBook page, following your Twitter stream, viewing your Flickr account, reading your answers on Trulia, Zillow & ActiveRain, evaluating your IDX, the quality of your multi-media marketing, processing how you engage comment threads and otherwise perpetually judging you under the cloak of anonymity.

How are you representing yourself in public and when you don't think anyone is looking?

The silver lining in this post could be that 'The Bar' is so low in a consumers eyes, those Agents willing to set aside their perceptions and confront reality are in a great position to capture some huge marketshare. Take this information and use it to your advantage rather than deny its validity.

Many Agents are out there cleaning up despite this 'depressing' market...Find them, reach out to them, study their successes...I find the most successful people in life are more than willing to share their successes and help others get there too. Reciprocity is still live and well...

To hear more, check out this interview with Tim Harris…

Contrived Attrition? Washingtons Play in The Fall and Rise of Wall Street

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:12:32 -0500

Many pundits speak about these turbulent times as a recession, depression or somewhere in between. I personally like to view the glass half full and pronounce this time in our economy's history as an epic correction. Times of unprecedented growth are almost assuredly followed by times of unprecedented 'shrinkage'...you know, markets are cyclical in nature, yada-yada-yada.

However, there are some interesting facts to consider besides traditional logic...

Contrived Attrition?

The ironic part is that the forces that helped bring this market to its knees may be the same that build it back up. Let me explain...

Back in July 2008 I questioned whether some of 'this' wasn't a bit contrived...I still do.

These two posts written in July 2008 speculated on possible alternative reasons Fannie and Freddie stock was plummeting...special note to the link citing the Financial Accounting Standards Board decision to favor a simpler accounting method for Qualified Special Purpose Entities that serviced mortgages into securities for the benefit of adjusting distressed borrowers ARM's. What? In a nut shell, at the end of the day, lenders wouldn't be able to bury losses from the public's eyes like they used to and their financial reports would suffer.

Coincidentally or not, on July 6, 2007 the SEC eliminated the 'Uptick Rule' which was implemented in 1938 to curb the type of concentrated short selling of stocks where speculators make money when the stock price drops.

New accounting methods for financial institutions will show increased losses on paper, naturally priming the pump for plummeting stock prices. Sans uptick rule, speculators smell bearish conditions and short stocks with fervor, driving companies and portfolios values into the ground.

By October 2008 blood was in the streets and investors start shorting financial institutions stocks in historical volume, acting as if they were...going out of business...? Fannie and Freddie are sequestered from the chaos.

Conventional money (401(k), Mutual Funds, regular people etc) got the hell out of the way and out of the market. Institutional investors ate each other for lunch. Everything went 'Pear Shaped'. Many stocks are today worth less than 50% of their value from 18 months ago.

The Government announces plans that they are going to Bailout 'the worthy' using a hodge-podge of methods, some useful others akin to little more than a circle-jerk, including buying preferred and common shares of these floundering financial (and related industry) behemoths that are 'too important to fail'.

The Return of 'Favorable' Accounting and Keeping The Bears on a Leash...

March 10th 2009...The Dow surged 6%+ on the following news (Courtesy Wall Street Journal)

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech it was important to address the valuation of illiquid assets. Banks want leeway in accounting for illiquid holdings, and investors were encouraged by Mr. Bernanke's statement, though he said that he wouldn't support the suspension of mark-to-market rules.

"Bernanke said the magic words -- that the Fed was considering looking at accounting standards," said Fred Dickson, market strategist at D.A. Davidson.

It would appear after looking at yesterdays market swing that the accounting standards that Mr Bernanke is alluding to will favor banks, shoring up value in investors eyes, hence the mini-rally. Were his words transcribed as 'We'll let you get back to some creative accounting soon'? It looks that way.

Barney Frank also stated the SEC may reinstate the 'uptick rule' as early as April, which has to re-establish overall market confidence by keeping the Bears on a bit of a leash, mitigating the extreme volatility.

Is it That Crudely Simple?

Was this all contrived to flush out all of the 'toxic' securities faster rather the wade in the muck for years? Where the floodgates purposely opened only to close them back up when the time was right?

I'm often asked when I think the real estate and mortgage market will bottom out. My answer usually coincided with the end of the 2-5 year period after NINJA (No Income/Asset/Job) loans were banished from the marketplace...around September 2007...so September 2009 is when support could naturally start to manifest.

There are now a myriad of artificial factors suggesting this 'time to bottom' could be 'moved up'. Coupled with the news yesterday, it very well could be sooner (end of '09) rather than later (end of '12).

A real sign that the markets are back on track would be when lenders will get back to sensible underwriting standards. From 2002 to 2007 mortgage underwriting was as fast and loose as a brothel in Amsterdam. 2008-current, you can't pull a pin out of a lenders ass with a John Deere tractor they're so tight. There is a middle ground, which is a topic for another post...

I'm not here to call the beginning of the end to these crazy economic times, there is still a looong way to go with many details to be worked out and ups/downs in front of us...I just can't help but wonder aloud if aspects of this 'economic meltdown' weren't contrived to push the crap out of the system quicker, knowing full well there would be (justified? acceptable??) collateral damage...It sounds ridiculous to say, yet resonates as plausible to the (my) mind...

The Bigger You Give, The Bigger You Get (Back)...Content Ownership on ActiveRain

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:14:09 -0600

There are many who believe that there is an inherent risk when posting content to 3rd party sites because you allegedly 'don't own your content'. Its true, when you submit your content to 3rd party sites you become bound by their Terms of Use and other guidelines, which can vary greatly but have common denominators, such as allowing the site to terminate your account for violating certain guidelines...or for no reason whatsoever.

ActiveRain has similar provisions for well founded legal reasons, although this network grants a greater degree of Content Ownership than any I could find after looking to other popular sites in this space Terms of Use. Let me elaborate.

ActiveRain takes the position that we reserve the right to use your content if you publish it here, until such time you tell us we can't. This constitutes a very fair degree of ownership to me. From AR's Terms of Use:

"Although you retain any proprietary rights that you may have in and to your Content, once you post your Content to the Site, you hereby grant ActiveRain, its affiliated companies, and their respective successors and assigns, a worldwide, non-exclusive, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) right and license...."

"The foregoing license granted by you terminates once you remove or delete your Content from the Site....ActiveRain will make commercially reasonable efforts to take down links, frames, and other work or content within its control that may be associated with your Content..."

Can you do this on other sites? I researched a few sites in the 'real estate 2.0' space that allow user generated content 'Terms of Use' and 'Guidelines', and found the standard 'you give up all rights' language but couldn't find where your rights could be relinquished back.

ActiveRain's Terms of Use and Guidelines in full.

Citing the Terms of Use/Service from some popular and relative 3rd Party sites and services...

HomeGain

License

"Unless otherwise agreed in a writing signed by HomeGain, by submitting content, photos, video, data or other materials directly through the HomeGain web site (collectively, "Materials"), you hereby grant to HomeGain a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, non-exclusive, fully transferable and sublicensable right and license to access, store, copy, modify, display, distribute, perform, create derivative works from, and otherwise use and exploit all such Materials in any form, media, software or technology of any kind now existing or developed in the future and the right to sublicense the foregoing rights through multiple tiers. You further grant to HomeGain a royalty-free right and license to use your name, image and likeness in advertising and in connection with the licensed rights for the Materials."

HomeGain Rights

You expressly agree that HomeGain: ...(b) reserve the right to review, reject, delete, remove, modify, or edit any Materials at any time for any reason, without liability and without notice to you.

Wordpress.com (Automattic)

Automattic has the right (though not the obligation) to, in Automattic’s sole discretion (i) refuse or remove any content that, in Automattic’s reasonable opinion, violates any Automattic policy or is in any way harmful or objectionable, or (ii) terminate or deny access to and use of the Website to any individual or entity for any reason, in Automattic’s sole discretion. Automattic will have no obligation to provide a refund of any amounts previously paid.

Termination.

Automattic may terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately.

Zillow.com

3. Materials You Provide; Account Use; Privacy.

...You grant Zillow.com an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide license to (1) use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, and translate your Submission, in connection with the Services or in any other media, and (2) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. Zillow.com will not pay you for your Submission. Zillow.com may remove your Submission at any time

11. Changes; Discontinuance.

Zillow.com reserves the right to change the Terms of Use, and you are responsible for regularly reviewing these Terms of Use. Your continued use of the Services after the effective date of such changes will constitute acceptance of and agreement to any such changes. Zillow.com may suspend or discontinue the Services at any time to you and/or to others, without notice.

Trulia.com

User Submitted Content

...You are solely responsible for any Content and other material that you submit, publish, display or link to on the Site or send to other Trulia users.

You agree that by posting content on the Site, you are granting Trulia a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable license to use this information in the course of offering the Services.

Trulia may delete any Content that in the sole judgment of Trulia violates these Terms of Use or Community Guideline....

I'll stop the citations here but you can be sure that similar language is found on every similar type site and/or service.

If you don't want your content used by anyone but yourself, don't contribute anywhere: Use an independent web publishing platform, host the software yourself, scrub the web for content scrappers...and good luck getting found.

Personally Ive found that the bigger you give, the bigger you get...the laws of reciprocity still work pretty well. Participating on, or at least checking out, any and all of the above sites will yield some upside in the form of education and possibly business.

In the end, you have to trust the venue where you are contributing your content, and be prepared to play by their domains rules...just be sure you know exactly what they are.

I've turned comments off, if you have something to say about this post, good, bad or otherwise, write about it and link back here...Why? Its my content.

Obamas Aggressive Mortgage Recovery Plan is Unveiled

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:38:22 -0600

Details regarding President Obamas $75B plan to stem ‘The Housing Crisis’ are out, or as I shall call them: Obamas Mortgage Economics or MObamanomics.

I openly laud some of the principles behind MObamanomics, such as:

“It will not help speculators who took risky bets on a rising market and bought homes not to live in but to sell” and “It will not reward folks who bought homes they knew from the beginning they would never be able to afford.”

Speculators should understand and realize the risk of riding an asset up and down.

MObamanomics looks to be far more proactive than reactive too, allowing consumers to qualify for assistance before they default on their mortgage (and lenders take a loss). Though not by design, mandating that a consumer default before receiving help actually incentivizes them to do just that.

This is by no means a comprehensive analysis, rather the parts I can wrap my head around for now. For what its worth, President Obamas plan is more aggressive than I had anticipated and he should be commended for having the cajones to step out there where many wouldn’t.

Risky loans, these aint no stinkin risky loans…

MObamanomics will allow Fannie and Freddie to restructure and/or refinance consumers with higher (than 80%) LTV loans on their primary residence that are already within their portfolio. This aspect of the plan will increase the size of the conforming loan pool where consumers can swim…and thats a good thing.

Fannie and Freddie are typically barred from lending above 80% of a homes value or purchase price without Mortgage Insurance attached (that adds significant dollars to ones monthly payment -more on this below-) because mortgages with LTV’s above 80% are deemed risky by ‘the industry’- Heh. 20% LTV’s are risky with poor underwritng standards. I’m sure that every mortgage that gets modified under this program will come with a borrower that can prove their income, has a solid credit score, a job and a few months worth of payments in the bank…what a novel concept.

Curious to how the plan will accomodate consumers who find themselves in homes worth less than what they owe. Whether Fannie and Freddie or any lender will restructure a mortgage that is worth 125% of a homes value remains to be seen.

$75,000,000,000 in grease money…

Part of the $75B in The Plan will be used to subsidize the reduction of a consumers mortgage payment to as low as 31% of their monthly income. The lender will initially need to make enough in concessions to get the payment down to 38%, then the government will match the lender dollar for dollar to get the payment down to 31% of a borrowers monthly income. Someone did their research here, ‘discovering’ that high payment to income ratios are the number one cause of mortgage defaults.

The methods a lender uses to get borrowers payments down to 38%/31% could involve stretching out the term (from say 27 to 40 years), lowering the rate and/or the principle balance. How they do this on an individual basis, when numerous loans were bundled together and sold to investment vehicles like mutual funds seems like a challenge to say the least.

The money will come in the form of $1000 when a lender initially agrees to modify a loan with another $3000 available for the next 3 years. Many pundits will scoff at the idea of feeding the hand that supposedly slapped everyone…but this is 2009, traditional public facing politically correct economic strategies aren’t likely to work. Traditional back door politics are in order here, gotta pay to get them to play son. In any case I applaud the transparency.

MObamanomics shall also subsidize the mortgage insurance premiums that are typically required for Conforming loans with LTV’s higher than 80% at no charge to the consumer. If the consumer defaults, the government picks up the difference above 80.01% of the value of the home. This is actually a good idea that will directly benefit the consumer.

Alas, if the cost to concede exceeds the cost to foreclose I can’t see a lender using their moral compass over their financial one.

Borrowers who have lost their jobs or make far less than they did when they initially acquired the mortgage, are probably beyond help.

In the end, its still a voluntary program…lenders can cherry pick the situations they want to work with. I fear the only way to make lenders play above aboard is the real threat of granting bankruptcy judges (with proper education) the ability to mandate certain loan modifications.

$200,000,000,000 in new money…

Supposedly there’s $200B on the table (up from $100B) for Fannie and Freddie to lend out, increase their portfolio size and remain solvent.

I suspect there will be stringent underwriting guidelines, as there should be, but I would implore the regulators to consider such crazy ideas like lending up to 103% of a homes purchase price for primary residences. This sort of forward thinking, IMHO, would really jump start the purchase market.

All in all, I like where MObamanomics is going, it represents some solid first steps. Now there is more than just hope, there is a strategy…

…and there will need to be many more such steps to pick up the slack from the STAGGERING list of lenders no longer lending through various channels…

334. Perfect FHA - Wholesale
333. EquiFirst
332. Residential Loan Centers of America
331. CU National Mortgage
330. Colonial National Mortgage - Wholesale
329. U.S. Mortgage Corp. - Retail
328. First Interstate Financial - Wholesale
327. Realty Mortgage Corp.
326. Vertice
325. USA Home Loans - Wholesale
324. SunTrust Mortgage - FHA Wholesale
323. New South Federal Savings Bank - Wholesale
322. First Federal - Wholesale
321. 21st Mortgage - Wholesale
320. J.B. Nutter & Co. - Wholesale
319. Homebridge Mortgage Bankers - Refinance.com
318. 1st Republic Mortgage Bankers
317. Superior Mortgage Corp - Wholesale
316. Wall Street Financial Corp - Wholesale
315. Fairfield Financial Mortgage Group
314. Chase Prime - Wholesale
313. Sunshine & Madison Mortgage Corp
312. Liberty One Lending
311. Frontier Investment Co.
310. BankUnited - Wholesale
309. Solstice Capital Group - HSBC
308. MortgageIT
307. HCL Finance Inc. - Wholesale
306. LIME Financial Svcs. - Wholesale
305. Mortgage Network Inc. - Wholesale
304. Fortes Financial - Wholesale
303. HSBC Mortgage Corp. - Wholesale
302. CBRE Realty Finance
301. Franklin Bank, SSB
300. Mortgage Lion, Inc. - Wholesale
299. HMS Capital, Inc.
298. American Sterling Bank - Wholesale
297. CTX Mortgage Co. - Retail
296. Equity One Commercial
295. Coldstream Financial Svcs.
294. Banco Popular North America - Wholesale
293. Ace Mortgage Funding, LLC
292. E-Loan
291. Gateway Bank, F.S.B. - Wholesale
290. First Call Mortgage Co.
289. Downey Savings and Loan - Wholesale
288. Prospect’s Metrocities Mortgage - Wholesale
287. ComCor Mortgage - Wholesale
286. Chevy Chase Bank - Wholesale
285. Washington Mutual - Retail and Warehouse
284. Hometown Commercial Capital
283. Mid Atlantic Capital LLC
282. Kemper Mortgage, Inc.
281. Liberty Mortgage Funding Co.
280. Freddie Mac
279. Fannie Mae
278. Pacific Community Mortgage, Inc. - Gold Reverse, Inc.
277. Homecomings Financial, LLC
276. Thornburg Mortgage
275. CSB Mortgage
274. Carteret Mortgage Corporation
273. Accredited Home Lenders, Lone Star Funds - Wholesale
272. Western Residential Mortgage
271. Liberty Home Lending
270. Equipoint Financial Network, Inc.
269. Ideal Mortgage Bankers, Ltd. - Wholesale
268. Silver State Bank - Wholesale
267. Irwin Union Bank & Trust Co. - Wholesale
266. SunTrust Bank Equity Wholesale
265. Wachovia Mortgage, FSB - Wholesale
264. Lehman Brothers SBF
263. IndyMac Bancorp
262. Mortgages Ltd.
261. Wilmington Finance - Wholesale
260. Accredited Home Lenders, Home Funds Direct
259. Assured Lending Corp. - Wholesale
258. Homewide Lending Corporation
257. Vanguard Mortgage & Title, Inc.
256. Chase Home Equity - Wholesale
255. Chase Subprime - Wholesale
254. Evergreen Investment & Carnation Banc
253. Casa Blanca Mortgage/Shearson - Wholesale
252. Guaranty Bank - Correspondent
251. Citi Residential Lending
250. Montgomery Mortgage Capital Company
249. E*Trade Wholesale Lending
248. Shearson Financial Network, Inc.
247. American Bank Mortgage Group - Wholesale
246. AmeriBanc Corp.
245. Washington Mutual - Wholesale
244. Century Bank, F.S.B. - Wholesale
243. Diversified Mortgage, Inc.
242. National Wholesale Funding
241. Centennial Mortgage and Funding, Inc./Award Mortgage
240. Fidelity Home Mortgage Corp.
239. LMI Funding, Inc.
238. Millennium Mortgage - Wholesale
237. Origen Financial, Inc. (Correspondent)
236. CitiMortgage - Home Equity Wholesale
235. Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage
234. East West Mortgage Co. of VA
233. New Vision Residential Lending
232. Washington Savings Bank, F.S.B. - Wholesale
231. Macquarie Mortgages USA Inc.
230. Global Mortgage, Inc.
229. Unique Mortgage Solutions (UMS, LLC)
228. First Franklin - Merrill Lynch
227. First National Mortgage Sources
226. Resource Mortgage (Wholesale)
225. KH Financial
224. Lydian Mortgage
223. OMG Wholesale Lending
222. Saxon Mortgage (Wholesale)
221. Beazer Mortgage Corp.
220. Allpointe Mortgage (Broker Program)
219. Popular Warehouse Lending
218. Allied Lending Corp. (Wholesale)
217. BF Saul Wholesale Lending
216. Community Resource Mortgage
215. Lehman/Aurora Loan Services
214. Residential Mortgage Capital
213. Maverick Residential Mortgage
212. Countrywide Financial Corp.
211. First NLC Financial Services
210. First American Bank (Wholesale)
209. Soma Financial
208. National City Corp. (Wholesale)
207. Heartland Wholesale Funding
206. Homefront Mortgage Inc.
205. PNC Bank H.E.
204. Family First Mortgage Corp.
203. First Fidelity Financial
202. BSM Financial
201. 1st Choice Mortgage
200. Wescom Credit Union
199. Coast Financial Holdings/Coast Bank
198. WaMu (Subprime)
197. First Madison Mortgage
196. Southern Star Mortgage
195. TransLand Financial
194. Secured Bankers Mortgage Company (SBMC)
193. ComUnity Lending
192. Delta Financial Corp
191. BayRock Mortgage
190. Empire Bancorp
189. Option One - H&R Block
188. Citigroup - FCS Warehouse
187. Charter One (Wholesale)
186. Wells Fargo - Home Equity
185. Paul Financial, LLC
184. Webster Bank (Wholesale)
183. Fieldstone Mortgage Company
182. Tribeca Lending Corp. (Wholesale)
181. WAMU Comm. Correspondent
180. Marlin Mortgage Company
179. Countrywide Specialty Lending
178. UBS Home Finance
177. MortgageIT-DB (Retail)
176. Edgewater Lending Group
175. ResMAE Mortgage Corp.
174. Citimortgage Correspondent (2nds)
173. AMC Lending
172. Liberty American Mortgage
171. Exchange Financial (Wholesale)
170. FirstBank Mortgage
169. Bank of America (Wholesale)
168. Diablo Funding Group Inc.
167. Honor State Bank
166. Spectrum Financial Group
165. Priority Funding Mortgage Bankers
164. BrooksAmerica Mortgage Corp.
163. Valley Vista Mortgage
162. New State Mortgage Company
161. Summit Mortgage Company
160. WMC
159. Paragon Home Lending
158. First Mariner Wholesale
157. The Lending Connection
156. Foxtons, Inc.
155. SCME Mortage Bankers
154. Aapex Mortgage (Apex Financial Group)
153. Wells Fargo (various Correspondent and Non-prime divisions)
152. Nationstar Mortgage
151. Decision One (HSBC)
150. Impac Lending Group
149. Long Beach (WaMu Warehouse/Correspondent)
148. Expanded Mortgage Credit Wholesale
147. The Mortgage Store Financial
146. C & G Financial
145. CFIC Home Mortgage
144. All Fund Mortgage
143. LownHome Financial
142. Sea Breeze Financial Services
141. Castle Point Mortgage
140. Premium Funding Corp
139. Group One Lending
138. Allstate Home Loans / Allstate Funding
137. Home Loan Specialists (HLS)
136. Transnational Finance Wholesale
135. CIT Home Lending
134. Capital Six Funding
133. Mortgage Investors Group (MIG) - Wholesale
132. Amstar Mortgage Corp
131. Quality Home Loans
130. BNC Mortgage (Lehman)
129. First National Bank of Arizona
128. Chevy Chase Bank Correspondent
127. GreenPoint Mortgage - Capital One Wholesale
126. NovaStar, Homeview Lending
125. Quick Loan Funding
124. Calusa Investments
123. Mercantile Mortgage
122. First Magnus
121. First Indiana Wholesale
120. GEM Loans / Pacific American Mortgage (PAMCO)
119. Kirkwood Financial Corporation
118. Lexington Lending
117. Express Capital Lending
116. Deutsche Bank Correspondent Lending Group (CLG)
115. MLSG
114. Trump Mortgage
113. HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation
112. Mylor Financial
111. Aegis
110. Alternative Financing Corp (AFC) Wholesale
109. Winstar Mortgage
108. American Home Mortgage / American Brokers Conduit
107. Optima Funding
106. Equity Funding Group
105. Sunset Mortgage
104. Nations Home Lending
103. Entrust Mortgage
102. Alera Financial (Wholesale)
101. Flick Mortgage/Mortgage Simple
100. Dollar Mortgage Corporation
99. Alliance Bancorp
98. Choice Capital Funding
97. Premier Mortgage Funding
96. Stone Creek Funding
95. FlexPoint Funding (Wholesale & Retail)
94. Starpointe Mortgage
93. Unlimited Loan Resources (ULR)
92. Freestand Financial
91. Steward Financial
90. Bridge Capital Corporation
89. Altivus Financial
88. ACT Mortgage
87. Alliance Mortgage Banking Corp (AMBC)
86. Concord Mortgage Wholesale
85. Heartwell Mortgage
84. Oak Street Mortgage
83. The Mortgage Warehouse
82. First Street Financial
81. Right-Away Mortgage
80. Heritage Plaza Mortgage
79. Horizon Bank Wholesale Lending Group
78. Lancaster Mortgage Bank (LMB)
77. Bryco (Wholesale)
76. No Red Tape Mortgage
75. The Lending Group (TLG)
74. Pro 30 Funding
73. NetBank Funding, Market Street Mortgage
72. Columbia Home Loans, LLC
71. Mortgage Tree Lending
70. Homeland Capital Group
69. Nation One Mortgage
68. Dana Capital Group
67. Millenium Funding Group
66. MILA
65. Home Equity of America
64. Opteum (Wholesale, Conduit)
63. Innovative Mortgage Capital
62. Home Capital, Inc.
61. Home 123 Mortgage
60. Homefield Financial
59. First Horizon Subprime, Equity Lending
58. Platinum Capital Group (Wholesale)
57. First Source Funding Group (FSFG)
56. Alterna Mortgage
55. Solutions Funding
54. People’s Mortgage
53. LowerMyPayment.com
52. Zone Funding
51. First Consolidated (Subprime Wholesale)
50. SouthStar Funding
49. Warehouse USA
48. H&R Block Mortgage
47. Madison Equity Loans
46. HSBC Mortgage Services (correspondent div.)
45. Sunset Direct Lending
44. Kellner Mortgage Investments
43. LoanCity
42. CoreStar Financial Group
41. Ameriquest, ACC Wholesale
40. Investaid Corp.
39. People’s Choice Financial Corp.
38. Master Financial
37. Maribella Mortgage
36. FMF Capital LLC
35. New Century Financial Corp.
34. Wachovia Mortgage (Correspondent div.)
33. Ameritrust Mortgage Company (Subprime Wholesale)
32. Trojan Lending (Wholesale)
31. Fremont General Corporation
30. DomesticBank (Wholesale Lending Division)
29. Ivanhoe Mortgage/Central Pacific Mortgage
28. Eagle First Mortgage
27. Coastal Capital
26. Silver State Mortgage
25. ECC Capital/Encore Credit
24. Lender’s Direct Capital Corporation (wholesale division)
23. Concorde Acceptance
22. DeepGreen Financial
21. American Freedom Mortgage, Inc.
20. Millenium Bankshares (Mortgage Subsidiaries)
19. Summit Mortgage
18. Mandalay Mortgage
17. Rose Mortgage
16. EquiBanc
15. FundingAmerica
14. Popular Financial Holdings
13. Clear Choice Financial/Bay Capital
12. Origen Wholesale Lending
11. SecuredFunding
10. Preferred Advantage
9. MLN
8. Sovereign Bancorp (Wholesale Ops)
7. Harbourton Mortgage Investment Corporation
6. OwnIt Mortgage
5. Sebring Capital Partners
4. Axis Mortgage & Investments
3. Meritage Mortgage
2. Acoustic Home Loans
1. Merit Financial

List courtesy of The Mortgage Lender Implode-o-Meter

How to Make Twitter and Facebook Relevant to your Business

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 16:06:36 -0600

I've personally known Pat and Kevin of Domus Consulting for a couple of years now and have come to appreciate how they're consistently ahead of the curve when it comes to leveraging the tools of Social Networking for greater marketing and business success...In this case realizing the need to involve other professionals, outside the real estate space, into your Social Networking/Marketing initiatives.

2009 is the year 'Hyper-Local' goes mainstream...Pat and Kevin will teach you how to train your personal local community to engage the social media outlets to enhance the transparency and depth of your collective marketing efforts. Great stuff!!

Via Patrick Kitano (Domus Consulting Group):

Social networking is exciting on Active Rain because the community is vibrant with conversation, intimacy and networking. Many Active Rainers join Facebook and Twitter, end up conversing with the same Active Rainers, and wonder "how can I make Facebook relevant to my business development and community networking?".

Simply put, the key is to get your local community of friends and associates to join your networks. You want to get them on Twitter and Facebook but you don't have time to teach them how to use these social media tools to best effect (you may not know yourself ;)

We offer the solution. You may have heard about our ongoing series of Social Media Marketing Webinars previously from Jeff Dowler or Brad Andersohn. We're starting our sixth series next week, and we'll show you how to make the social media relevant and actionable for building your local network, and create a ubiquitous online presence (all without necessarily blogging, btw).

When you register for our Social Media Marketing course through Active Rain, we offer you the opportunity to invite as many of your friends and contacts as you want (locally or nationally) to attend our Social Media Marketing webinar for one month free (a $99 value).

Your contacts must be outside the real estate industry - local politicians, business leaders, small business owners, chambers of commerce members, former and prospective clients - anybody who can benefit from social media marketing for their local business. In four weekly sessions, we will demonstrate step-by-step how to use Twitter and Facebook, and show all of you how to build a massive community network together. This webinar, focused to small business owners, will be separate from the webinar you as a real estate professional will be attending.

We are limiting this opportunity to invite your friends free only to our first 50 registrants. We're offering the 3-month course for $49/month to Active Rain members (half price from $99) and you can attend any or all 12 sessions we offer per month (including the webinar for small business owners if you want) for one low tuition fee. We start next week:

Two time slots for Real Estate:

Mondays from 10:30am to 11:30am PST, starting February 16, through May 16 - weekly

Tuesdays from 9:00am to 10:00am PST, starting February 17, through May 17 - weekly

One time slot for Small Business

Tuesdays from 8:00am to 9:00am PST, starting February 24, through May 24 - weekly (after the first free month, your friends can opt to continue the 3-month course at $49/month)

So check our testimonials, register today and get all your friends on board with you on the social media train! We will explain how your friends can register for their webinar (starting one week later) at our first sessions. Your friends will thank you for the opportunity; the gift of business education is far more valuable than a Starbucks coffee card.

UPDATE: Network Generation is the Next Lead Generation. I'm discussing how building your community social network will draw in your consumer traffic and leads.

Circles, Dots and Mortgages

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:42:33 -0600

What the hell is this? My kindergarten drawing of what happened to the mortgage industry and why so many homes are in foreclosure or heading there.

The black dots represent the relative amount of people who have/need a mortgage.

The gray circle represents the size of the pool of available mortgage programs prior to ~August 2007, i.e. the sub-prime and Alt-A market.

The white circle represents the size of the pool of available mortgage programs today going forward, i.e. Conforming and FHA.

The gray circle has since evaporated. No new sub-prime or Alt-A loans available.

There are far less people who fit into the white circle.

That leaves a bunch of black dots that cannot get a mortgage anymore.

If you're a black dot that has a sub-prime or Alt-A ARM and it adjusts for the worse, dont have the credit/financial strength to qualify for a Conforming or FHA loan (fit in the white circle), your stuck. Pay the higher monthly payment, sometimes as much as 50% higher, or lose the home to foreclosure.

Thats leaving a bunch of houses empty.

End of story.

Monetize Your Individual or Team Hyper-Local Blog With Relative Advertising

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:35:26 -0600

Inspired in part by Brad Andersohn and Debbie Malones post, I want to draw attention to a potential marketing and monetization strategy for Individual or Team Blogs that most anyone can implement.

Brad discussed one of 5 potential ways to maximize your Team Blog: recruit 'Your Affiliates Who Contribute to Your Business and Success'. Debbie posted that how her hyper-local content about Lynchburg, VA was sending business to some other local businesses that she mentioned in her blog.

Often times, the obvious isn't such, so I'd like to point out an easy way to monetize and otherwise add value to your AR Individual and/or Team Blog: Recruit local businesses to contribute and/or advertise on your blog.

Think about it...you have The Juice, Google Juice, which is an online marketers Holy Grail. Hyper-local blogs are quickly replacing Newspapers as the go to source for local news, events and area service providers. Write a review about a local restaurant or 3rd party service provider, show them how they show up in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) and offer up an advertisement placement in your sidebar for $25, $50, $100 (?) a month. As your traffic increases so does the value of your online real estate.

With the pending release of 'Widgets' to our outside blogging platform, specifically the ability embed images in the sidebar, there is a great opportunity to sell that space to local advertisers, whether they be a service provider like a good plumber or simply a great restaurant that you want to share with others.

Couple of points...

Be selective. Don't indescriminantly slap up 30 advertisers; be thoughtful with who gets a spot on your site, they reflect on you. Preferably only allow businesses or people with whom you've had a positive experience with to participate. I'd personally limit the advertising space to 3-4 to begin with.

Be creative. People ignore vanilla or ugly ads. The ad should have a succinct call to action, offer a clear tangible benefit and look good.

Stay focused. The more you write about your local areas the more likely you are to rank for seach terms for that area. Concentrate your content and tag your posts appropriately.

This can be a great way to pay for the cost of the blog and subsidize your income, all for doing what you're already doing. Start generating a Social Media ROI!

Pending Death and Future Living. Transparency, Technology, Social Media, Business Strategy, With Some Economics Sprinkled On Top

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:06:14 -0600

So, I've been running my mouth about this word called ::Transparency:: for a few years now. When you wax philosophic on a topic for so long, watching it manifest in the main stream elicits redemptive emotions.

What is Transparency? The word has a far reaching and fascinating taxonomy depending on what the corresponding topic is. Generally, its a noun that suggests that the given topic can be seen and understood clearly with little left to the imagination. Transparency fosters a greater sense of awareness around a given topic. Most people will say that greater transparency regarding a given topic is generally a good thing.

So, is Transparency a good thing for business?

On paper, as an ideology, Transparency represents practices performed in a more truthful, enlightened and thus positive light.

In practice, in real life, Transparency tends to compromise established industry's, institutions and individuals ability to continue to function as they traditionally have, more often than not with extreme deleterious consequences to a rigid status-quo.

You can't handle the truth! - Colonel Nathan Jessup.

Copious amounts of raw disseminateable data, a byproduct of our progression into the The Information Age, has catalyzed the virility of Transparency creating fast moving paradigm shifts that corporations and industry stalwarts are simply unprepared to handle. Transparency exacerbates underlying 'issues' and causes rapid disintermediation to legacy industries like ::wait for it:: real estate (and mortgage).

The writing has been on the wall for years now:

From 1997, Clayton Christensen's The Innovators Dilemma articulates that a 'successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices.'
From 1999 Blown to Bits states that "the Internet and other technological innovations are changing the basic structures of most industries and simply destroying the remainder." and "Increasingly, your customers will have rich access to a universe of alternatives, your suppliers will exploit direct access to your customers, and your competitors will pick off the most profitable parts of your value chain. Your competitive advantage is up for grabs."

Transparency has brought many an industry to its knees. While it seemed like a good idea at the time, it's clear today that the money that was printed to create the Mortgage Backed Security Market created a bubble that popped. Consequentially bubble based business models are taking it on the chin, drawing out the knee jerk reaction of indiscriminate cost cutting. As a business, trimming unnecessary fat is very prudent right about now, but what shouldn't be ignored is investing in the type of innovation required to compete for future discerning consumers (and agents).

Today, more than ever, its time to 'abandon traditional business practices' if you want to stay in business much less maintain a competitive advantage.

Back in late 2007, I quickly rambled about three topics that represent vanguard of the future of real estate:

Compensation reformation or divorcing real estate commissions is coming, since inter-broker compensation can be handled outside of the traditional MLS...A different version of the same thing isn't a viable solution and mass adoption of isn't probable considering the openness of the technology landscape, 2007-08 forward.
Zillow and Trulia aren't it either...Both well funded 3rd party destination real estate information websites business models revolve around advertising. Advertisers pay money to players like Z & T because consumers are carousing their sites, not an agents or brokerage, so it would seem fair to say that both entities would like to keep the consumer there. This isn't a knock against either company, they do what they do and make no bones about it, however their respective agendas don't line up with the individual agent...
An application (technology, widget, et al.) that allows for a real estate professional to 'share' their valuable information and market their services to others within similar spheres, while insuring an acceptable assurance of reciprocity has yet to be identified...though it should involve a strategy that implements an open Social Networking Optimization framework that allows birds of a feather to flock and fly together...

1) Compensation reform (initially) on the Broker to agent level (CGI splits, desk fees) is manifesting out of brute downward pressures on the market: depressive home values, heavy inventory and lack of credit. These conditions are pushing many agents out of the industry and causing the best agents to become rather brand or franchise agnostic, perpetually asking: What have you done for me lately? Loyalty means little in a Bear market. Broad compensation reform between agent and consumer is an inevitability.

2) My overall point that the agendas of the Zillow's and Trulia's of the world don't line up with the individual agent brokerage is shared and expounded on (far better than I could) by my very smart friend Rob Hahn. How long is it before a critical mass of the best agents adapt to open their own (very virtual) brokerages, adopt these types of sites as primary marketing channels, utilize their superior products and services in place of the expense of affiliating with a broker-franchise-brand that provides diminishing, even negative value?

3) The 'open web' proliferated by the likes of Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect offer the 'open Social Networking Optimization framework' described above on highly scalable and cost effective levels. Aggregating and sharing granular information has never been faster, easier or cheaper with free communication syndication platforms like blogs, Twitter, FriendFeed and FeedFuze. Agents that have learned to harness these tools and services don't need to work for a major brand to succeed. They are becoming the brand.

Instead of dismissing these thought threads and seemingly diminutive products and services, real estate Franchises and Brokers would be wise to listen, adapt and adopt before they trip the line irrelevant. Over the past couple years a new position within the social spheres of the online real estate industry has popped up: Director of Social Media. It's a fancy name for someone who knows how to communicate online using the products and services mentioned above. Broker-Franchises should also seek 'Social Media Directors' and promote them from within their current contingencies. They represent a worthy investment as these folks have learned how to leverage information and create conversation around themselves and/or their business far more effectively than traditionally expensive marketing campaigns...they represent the future of real estate.

The generation that will pull this recession up from the depths knows nothing but the internet and how to communicate with the world using its cornucopia of social products and services. Tech savvy consumers will only connect with similarly tech savvy real estate professionals.

To tie this all together, I don't believe the real estate market will simply correct without major Transparent changes from and by the people who serve it. With money continuously being printed and infused into our economy, when things do turn inflation will be hard to control. Real estate is usually a sound hedge against inflation, as real assets typically rise in value in relative correlation with inflation percentages. These aren't 'usual' times. When real estate values do stabilize (aka bottom out), monetary inflation will likely increase at a hefty tick, further diminishing the buying and borrowing power of most people. Tough times are still ahead, there is no quick fix. Consumers will demand (and need) great service for less cost, or they simply won't buy.

The agent and business who ends up succeeding in this market will be the one who kept one eye on cutting costs and the other on investing in innovative resources, specifically industry relative content syndication applications like the examples mentioned above, and other similar technologies that promulgate Transparency. On the upside, these tools and technologies are rolling out cheaper and better than their predecessors...evaluate, adapt and adopt...or start looking for a new career.

::Done Rambling::

ActiveRain Launches ActiveBlogs, a Multi-Author Blogging Platform for Real Estate Industry Professionals

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:00:09 -0600

ActiveRain Launches ActiveBlogs, a Multi-Author Blogging Platform for Real Estate Industry Professionals.
ActiveBlogs increase online marketing power for real estate with easy syndication of blog content and superior search engine performance

SEATTLE, January 7 2009 – ActiveRain (http://activerain.com) today announced the release of Active Blogs, a turn-key blogging platform built for single or multiple authors. ActiveBlogs are customizable, dynamic web-publishing sites designed for the real estate and related industries.

ActiveBlogs allow individual professionals to team up and syndicate multiple types of content from their existing ActiveRain individual accounts to a custom website and url, which delivers innate Search Engine Optimization benefits such as location based Real Area Indexing or ‘Raindexing’.
The aggregation of continuous, targeted and fresh ‘Raindexed’ content within a single domain from numerous individuals improves Long-Tail Search Engine Optimization, efficiently and dramatically improving online marketing efforts.

‘ActiveRain recognizes that dynamic content integrated from multiple sources creates the robust experience today’s real estate consumer is looking for,” said Jeff Corbett, ActiveRain’s vice president of Operations and Business Development. “We believe ActiveBlogs provide a foundation to efficiently display this content.”

At launch, individual ActiveBlogs are priced at $19 per month while multi-author or ‘Team Blogs’ will cost $79.00 per month for hosting. Personalized branding is possible with numerous template options that may be customized to the administrator’s satisfaction.
‘Real estate related professionals deserve products and services pro-actively designed to suit their unique needs,” Corbett said. ‘No other platform at any price – including free – offers real estate professionals a better value in terms of ease of use, flexibility and seamless movement of content.”

About ActiveRain

Active Rain is a real estate technology company based in the Pacific Northwest. The company launched its online community for real estate professionals in June of 2006 and quickly established it as the leading real estate social network. The ActiveRain community currently has over 125,000 members. The company, founded in 2003, secured $2.75 million in funding in December of 2007.

For more information, visit http://www.activerain.com/.

Media Contact: Jeff Corbett//ActiveRain//jcorbett@activerain.com

###

Also See:

Jorgen Hahn, Programmer Extraordinaire explains new blogging platform

Faster, Safer, Better...ActiveRain is Undergoing a Major Tune-Up So 'Please Excuse The Mess'

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:28:30 -0600

ActiveRain has been admittedly a little extra 'wonky' lately. Everyone has probably experienced the 'Proxy' (and a few other) errors, including HTML, widget and other outside application disfunctionalities.

While it may seem like things are breaking down, in reality we're really beefing things up. The programming architecture that AR primarily runs on recently underwent a pretty substantial upgrade. In a nutshell, the version upgrade allows our programmers to work, implement and fix features and utilities much faster and easier than before. It also places an emphasis on simplicity, security and stability, all vital for a bustling community such as AR to function properly.

Alas, little bugs, glitches and other side-effects are inevitable (1 step back to take 4 steps forward)...also, we've locked out certain widgets, HTML tags and other scripts that can be malicious in nature (which can/have caused other issues on the network), such as:

Certain HTML tags will not work, specifically the <font> tag. H (header) and tags should be used instead.
Only 'approved' widgets will work in the network. Brad Andersohn will be releasing a post with the specific approved widget providers.
Some 3rd party applications (i.e. realestateshows.com) were temporarily down. Jeff Turnerites, please put down your pitchforks ;)

We've had other issues around commenting and inter-network email outages as well as links not opening in a new window, but they've been fixed.

I've noticed various posts popping up around the network identifying some or all of the above. While open communication is great, as it helps the entire community understand these issues are not theirs alone, if anyone notices 'bugs' in the future please also drop a line to Brad (brad@activerain.com), Rich (rich@activerain.com), Bob (bob@activerain.com) and/or myself (jcorbett@activerain.com). Chances are the powers that be are already aware of and working on the issues but some items may slip through the cracks and we want to make sure we've addressed everything. In any case, these bugs and issues are very temporary and will fade to black in the near future.

As always, we appreciate your patience and participation as we continue to build on the worlds best real estate social network.

NAR Orlando 2008 ActiveRain Party at Hard Rock Cafe in City Walk

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:33:20 -0600

View Larger Map

ActiveRain party at The Hard Rock Cafe at CityWalk in Orlando tonight from 8pm till?

Come alone, bring a friend, bring your friends friends...Once you arrive, look for the red carpet out front or ask any staff member for direction to The Lennon Room. We could have sponsored a booth at the convention center, but this seemed like alot more fun :)

See you there!

Map above for the directionally challenged.

A Proper IDX Solution is Vital to Your Online Marketing Success

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:18:42 -0600

Since launching Listing Router there has been much discussion around if the 'pay to direct traffic to your IDX website' is worth the price. Its a very valid question and the answer really depends far less on the dynamics of how Listing Router works and far more on where the traffic lands, in this case an agents 3rd party IDX website.

IDX stands for Internet Data Exchange that represents a class of websites that redisplay property listings from an MLS (or multiple MLS'). All IDX sites are NOT created equal.

The pay-per-click model of driving targeted traffic to ones website has proven to be very effective. It's a main component of Googles revenue model and they do pretty well, which thus means that there are many individuals and businesses using the service who are also seeing great results.

Pay-per-click success does not exist in a vacuum. Simply by engaging the Listing Router service does not guarantee anything except some additional traffic to your IDX site. You can receive a million visitors per month to your site but if it's clumsy, aesthetically challenged or antiquated, you're not likely to convert much (if any) of that traffic into a genuine lead and ideally a client.

Look at it this way. You want to buy a nice business suit for about $1000. You walk into a store that sells $1000 suits but they're thrown on the floor, men's are mixed with women's, customer service is non-existant, the lights flicker on and off and no store hours are posted (sometimes they're open, sometimes they're not). Sure some people will rummage through the disarray but 99% will probably leave within 5 seconds of entering.

Compare that experience to walking into Nordstrom. The store is impeccably clean, 'Suits' are clearly labeled, categorized by size and manufacturer, and the sales staff measures you into a $1000 suit that fits perfectly. They're open from 9am-9pm Mon-Sat and 10am-6pm Sunday.

Where are you likely to buy from? Which store are you likely to recommend to your friends in the market for a comparable suit?

A simple IDX solution with an easy to navigate User Interface is the difference between traffic and leads (clients) for an agent in today's real estate market...it goes without saying that 80% of all home buyers start their search online...however the disparity between what is acceptable and what exists is in the property search software market is jaw-dropping. I'm absolutely baffled at the low quality of IDX solutions that exist and are still used by many agents today. Some are downright awful or just don't work. If you are a practicing real estate agent and have hopes of staying in business, much less achieve a modicum of success, having an IDX solution that is clean and intuitive is mandatory...as in not an option to consider, but REQUIRED.

Some may dismissively wave their hands at me as someone who doesn't practice real estate and therefore consider me preachy or accuse me of having an agenda, so I solicited an opinion from a 'real life' agent that I think very highly of. I asked Kelley a simple question:

Why is a good IDX solution important to you as an agent?

Her reply:

A good IDX is important and makes my life easier as an agent, because it generates business. People appreciate and return again and again to a home search that is comprehensive, easy to understand quickly, and easy to use. A good IDX also allows me to integrate listings and home searches into places where my site visitors can quickly get to those homes - into blog posts and market reports and on neighborhood pages. IDX doesn't have to be just a single page on your old static site anymore. It's a whole system and method of integrating home searches into your complete web presence, so that it is always obvious to those site visitors that they can look at homes if they want to, and that you've anticipated their needs by integrating those home searches where they most want to see them. That's an incredibly powerful tool. If you take care of your site visitors by showing them something clean and simple to use, that addresses their needs at the right time, they'll love you for it.

Kelley put it quite simply: It's always about the user, always.

Technology may be daunting to many real estate professional (and other) members here on AR. A good number of agents cut their teeth in regards to new technologies and how they work with support from the network, which is a good start however, this is a fast paced world that waits for no one. Granted, no piece of technology will replace a good real estate professional but the agent that learns and embraces technology will replace the ones who don't. Fortunately for those who may not be technologically inclined there is a tremendous amount of support available, here in AR and the (good) companies that support their products.

There are too many widgets, gadgets and other 'Social Media' tools out there to count. Very few of them will produce a measurable return for time and money invested. A good clean IDX site is one piece of technology that can be the difference between traffic and clients.

If you are taking the time to set up and spend money on Listing Router campaigns I implore you to personally as well as have others review your IDX website. If you don't know what IDX is or don't currently use an IDX solution, RUN, don't walk to find and license a good one. You don't need to buy the most expensive model out there, yet the saying goes: You get what you pay for...

Check out:

Diverse Solutions

ARE-TEC

**I am in no way compensated nor was I solicited to link to the above sites, they are company's either run by or have products used by people I personally respect.**

If you have an IDX webiste provider that you reccomend, please do so in the comments with a link and a quick testimonial, Not Just A Link. I will delete any comment spam or links w/o an original testimonial from a professional using the IDX solution they're linking too.

Listing Router New Pay Per Click Pricing Per City

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:49:19 -0600

Late last week the Listing Router Pay Per Click system was retroactively updated to reflect new, and in many cases, reduced pricing.

If you have already set-up campaigns in the Listing Router admin pages, you don't need to change a thing.

If you have not already set up your campaigns and personal 'My Markets' section, you should make this a priority in your daily ActiveRain Active-ites.

The new pricing matrix generally breaks down as follows:

65.5% of all available cities will cost $.89 per click.
32.5% of all available cities will cost $.1.89 per click.
~1% of all available cities will cost $2.49 per click.

The method behind how much 'clicks per city' cost involve a variety of factors including property turnover rates and agent density vs population.

Below is a screen shot where I arbitrarily chose some cities in the Listing Router admin page to demonstrate the new pricing.

Under the URL column, you would fill in the link to the page on your IDX site for the appropriate city.

If you cannot find a city you are looking for, try being slightly less specific. Although we've tried to include as many cities and towns as possible, some will not show up due to size or other geographic reason.

Listing Router Two Week Free Trial, Reduced Click Cost By City, It Just Keeps Getting Better!

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:04:18 -0500

The ActiveRain Listing-Router

Feature Your Listings, Get More Traffic and Get Paid to Participate.

After a ton of feedback from the network, we have decided to offer our new Listing Router product free for the intial two weeks of launch, until November 10th 2008.

Some of the prevailing factors that led us to this decision:

Test drive before you buy. Many members would like to set-up their campaigns and test the system, resulting in self-trial clicks that would charge their accounts. We respect your need to try and test without paying for the privledge.

We tend to fear what we initially don't understand. AR wants to allow all members the time to read about, understand, and create campaigns with confidence. New products and services, change in general, can be uncomfortable at first. A free trial period should alleviate most members concerns around what we feel is a huge win-win service.

Establishing or refining your IDX sites. Many members will want to insure their IDX websites are functioning properly and others who don't have an IDX site will want to shop for and obtain one. Many larger brokerages offer IDX solutions to their agents for free. For those who dont and are in the market for one, either ask a trusted member or email me for some reccomendations. A well thought out and managed IDX solution can be the difference between just traffic and a converted client.

$1.99 per click?? Thats alot of coin! We're in the midst of adjusting our pricing tiers that will result in a reduced pay per click (less than $1.99) in 99% of the markets covered. We understand that a click to a market like Beverly Hills, CA is worth more than a click to say, Waco, TX. This is in addition to the discount we're offering AR members who have achieved substantial point tiers:

3% discount for members over 25K points
5% discount for members over 50K points
10% discount for members over 100K points
15% discount for members over 200K points
20% discount for members over 300K points

It's going to take us a couple days to implement the new city by city pay-per-click pricing, so you may want to wait until this is complete before setting up your campaigns, or you'll have to re-do them to reflect the new pricing. You should still go ahead and set-up your My Markets section, your traffic routed to your serviceable areas will always be free. In any case, we'll release a post when these pricing changes are updated.

Bugs! As with any new product or service release, there are going to be some inherrent glitches and bugs. Some of the initial issues we've discovered include:

Changing credit card information.

Search box semantics...currently you must just enter a city, hit enter and the system will ask which city and state you are looking for...we are changing this to allow one to enter city and state as well as 'predictive text' where as you type the city and state, the system will begin to predictively fill in the most likely results.

Site/page errors (arrgh!) and other smaller admin glitches.

When signing up you will still need to enter your credit card information, which will not be charged, only authorized for validity. At the end of the two week trial period, the pay-per-click charges will be zero'd out, however, you will still receive credits for anyone that used your Listing Router toolbar and was routed to an IDX site out of your area of practice during this time.

Finally, on November 10th the Pay-Per-Click campaigns will begin full tilt and you will begin to be charged for any campaigns you have set-up.

Cheers!

If you haven't already, be sure to check out these related posts:

The ActiveRain Listing Router

Listing Router 'Whiteboard Explanation'

Listing Router - How To Set Up Your Own Click Campaign

Listing Router - How To Setup & Save Your Own Traffic

A Lead vs a Hit.........for Listing Router (how to make the most out it)

The ActiveRain Listing Router

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:55:38 -0500

The ActiveRain Hit-Router

Feature Your Listings, Get More Traffic and Get Paid to Participate.

On Tuesday October 28th, ActiveRain we launched a new service called ‘Hit Router’. As the name implies, it's ActiveRain's initial move into the Property Listing aspect of online real estate search, albeit with a twist. Instead of trying to disproportionately aggregate listings directly into the network, we are instead going to route visitor traffic to our member's existing IDX sites in a Pay and Get Paid Click Campaign.

*Warning* I write long posts and this one is no exception :-) My style is to address as much and be as thorough as possible. To break up the reading, as a team we are going to release information regarding Hit Router in multiple stages and formats, beginning with this post. Brad Andersohn posted 'how to' tutorials as well as screen shots of the new service and Bob Stewart has a 'white board video' explanation of the new release.

Before I get into the nuances of Hit Router, allow me to first offer some basic explanations as to how most consumers find ActiveRain, and what they typically do upon arrival…

Prologue

Google and the other search engines love fresh relevant content, granting a high degree of authority to sites that produce such and ranking them accordingly on given search results pages.

Google also grants authority to websites that have other like websites linking to them. The more linkbacks a website receives, the higher the authority of that website through Google's goggles.

These last two paragraphs very generally encapsulate what is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or ‘Google Juice’. The better a website's SEO for a given term, phrase, topic, question etc. the higher Google will rank that site when someone (a consumer) types in a relevant search query, thus increasing the likelihood a given site (or page within a site) will appear on the Holy Grail of search results: The First Page.

ActiveRain’s community members produce a TON of fresh relevant real estate related content. AR also has an incredible amount of other relative sites linking back to a multitude of pages within the community. As a result, Google can’t help but consider ActiveRain and the content its community members generate as an authority for a myriad of search topics when it comes to real estate. Proof of this resides in the fact that 80% of ActiveRain's 2M+ unique visitors a month come from Google and other search engines.

Google is very smart, however, it’s not perfect and cannot read someones mind. Google knows when people are searching for a specific type of real estate information that ActiveRain is a highly authoritative resource for that information. What Google doesn’t know is that the next logical step in a consumer’s journey, after they find information on ActiveRain, is a Search for property Listings.

Although many AR members have been extremely successful with generating business from AR, we believe the success found to date is just the tip of the iceberg, so the question we posed to ourselves was:

‘How does AR further leverage its valuable Google Juice to turn prospective traffic into MORE business for our members?’

The answer became this little but powerful property search tool called 'Hit-Router'.

What is Listing-Router and How Exactly Does It Work?

For a visitor, it’s a new header that will permanently reside at the top of every page within the ActiveRain network. It will feature a search box preceded with phrase “Find Homes for Sale in: _________”. Once a user completes the search box and hits enter, “Hit Router” will send the user directly to an ActiveRain members existing IDX (or other property listing) site.

Hit Router Property Search Bar

The idea here is that the prospective homebuyer now has a clear option to continue along in their home buying journey.

For an AR member, Hit Router is effectively a Pay Per Click account campaign that allows AR members to buy traffic from other member’s sites and pages, with one major additional member benefit that I will share with you right after the example below.

For example:

Jane is a AR member who works in Bellevue WA and likes to write about equestrian property. Bill is a horse breeder near Lawrence, KS and stumbled upon a blog post by Jane after doing a search on Google about equestrian property. Bill found the exact answer he was looking for in Jane’s post and is now more excited than ever to start his search for a new home. Since Jane is not licensed to sell real estate in Kansas, Bill would normally at this point leave ActiveRain in search of real estate listings from a website that served Kansas.

At the same time, Todd (also and AR member) would love for Bill to come to his site and would gladly pay for his delivery or ‘click through’ for the increased potential of converting him into a client.

Using the Hit Router search bar, if Bill, on Jane’s site searches ‘Lawrence’ via Hit Router, he will be routed to Todd’s IDX site and Todd will pay approximately $2.00 for Bill's visit.

And Now for the Really Cool Part!

Hit Router will credit Jane’s account a percentage of the $2.00 click to route the visitor to Bill’s site! Jane may use these credits to purchase traffic of her own from other member’s pages in the same dynamic fashion.

This is worth repeating:

Any time a visitor uses an AR members Hit Router search interface to locate listings outside that agents area of service, that member receives credit to buy clicks from other member’s visitors.

How many credits do you earn?
How much you earn depends on a number of factors including how much someone pays to have traffic delivered to their IDX site. The easiest way to track how much you'll earn is to sign up and opt to run Hit Router on your blog pages, then check your Account Billing page.

In the Account Admin and Billing section you can purchase credit that can be used to buy traffic from other member’s sites and monitor the 'Click Credits' you receive.

Keeping Visitors in Your Market for Yourself!

No ActiveRain member wants to send visitors to their own blog, searching in their own market away to someone else. To insure this doesn't happen, there are two ways that a member can capture visitors in your own market and insure they get delivered to you FOR FREE.

1) Pre-select as many cities as you woud like to direct to your own IDX site.

In the My Markets section of the Hit Router admin panel, you may add as many city markets as you wish. When someone searches for any of these cities while on your blog, your blog posts or your profile, they are routed directly to your IDX site's page for that city. Again, this insures the traffic interested in your market is routed to your IDX listing pages.

2) Opt out of the program completely.

Simply unclick the checkbox you see below.

If you choose to opt out of the program, the toolbar will default to a hyper-linked text message of your choice.

While opting out is certainly your choice, doing so prohibits you from accruing credits from traffic that would otherwise leave your site and pages anyway, so why not get paid for it?

As always, your feedback is vital and greatly appreciated.

Here are links to tutorials and the 'whiteboard video explanation'

Setting up a click campaign

Saving your own traffic for free

Opting Out of Hit Router

Whiteboard Video Explanation of Hit Router

5 Reasons I (Formally) Joined ActiveRain

Jeff Corbett (ActiveRain) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:33:04 -0500

As Bob Stewart announced, I formally joined the team at ActiveRain last week. To say I'm stoked would be an understatement. The culture is great, working with a core team of talented people in this space has been an aspiration of mine for quite some time.

I was reflecting on this personal desire when Jon Washburn serendipitously called me (very) recently, broached the subject and took my temperature regarding coming to Seattle to work with the AR crew. It didn't take long (3 days actually) to decide that this would be a great fit for me and hopefully the community as a whole.

As i typically do when making a decision that carries any consequence, I weighed out the pros and cons of coming to work at AR...I'd like to share my top 5 pro's (Bob and his love for the Seahawks was really the only 'con' but I was able to look past that since my Buffalo Bills stomped all over his beloved football team).

5) I've always been interested in Seattle as a city to live in, home to many companies in the 'Web 2.0' space. Living in New York, North Carolina, Texas, and California, Seattle was the logical next stop on my horseshoe tour of thecountry.

4) Being called a (AR) God has been a secret desire of mine for quite some time ;) Seriously though, having the ability to make a positive impact on an industry I love via such a diverse and respected community like ActiveRain has me floating around like an elevated spirit :)

3) The Opportunity. While I can't discuss whats 'coming down the pipe' at AR, Localism etc (Jon has a gag order on me) to say that the collective vision of where this company is going is 'exciting', doesn't do it justice.

2) The Community. I joined AR as a member over two years ago and the community really taught me how to blog, find my voice and otherwise advance the relative skills to do well in this space. I indirectly (and now directly) attribute much of the success I've had to the great people I've met via AR. To now be part of this community, internally as well as a member, is pretty surreal. 'Pay it forward' is the appropriate colloquialism here...

1) The Team. From the top down, Jon the CEO to Bob the Janitor (j/k, Bob knows this), the individuals who are part of this company are brilliant, progressive thought leaders and genuinely good people. Being part of a greater team rather than a lone wolf is the number one reason I took this wonderful opportunity.

Anywhoo...I look forward to fostering and furthering the evolution of this company in my roles of business development and operations. The sky really isn't the limit here, its just thebeginning.

P.S. Hopefully the mortgage contingency here on AR doesn't revolt, rebel, torch the palce and leave...I'm a pretty reasonable guy who just happens to be passionate about what he's involved with, that now continues withActiveRain ;)