The SEO Bozos are getting pretty shifty with unbelievable get rich quick schemes.

If firm's like MerchantCircle or LeapFish can't get you suckered into buying their pumped up SEO service cleverly disguised as nothing more than a stupid directory listing in somebody's portal that less than .000004% of your web customers are ever going to visit -- watch out!  

The SEO Bozos are back and they're luring in thousands of people with clever webpages that show you people holding big checks from Google.

The scam, buy their book, or buy their $49 a month service so you can make $10,000 a month from Google with AdSense.

Let's assume for a minute that there was A Google Gold Mine out there for real.

If you found one... WHY would you tell people how to steal your private Gold Mine?

Why not keep the secret to yourself?

This is the big acid test. It's such a great Gold Mine why are you sharing the secret with me for $19.95?  Pure stupidity. 

It simply defies conventional wisdom and the way people are.

If you look carefully, these are Photoshop'd versions of the same check and 95% of them are several years old, before Google made substantial changes to the program. 

While some people are getting checks, they are not like the one above for $132,994.97.

Google PREFERS to deposit to your bank, instead of mailing them. We get paid by Google for traffic to several websites. My average check runs under $1,000 a month but is never mailed to me. It is direct deposited to my account. About what it cost many REALTORS for their monthly desk fees, Top Producer and your $19.95 a month active Rain Website. 

The websites to watch out for are all like the ones below;

KevinLifeBlog.com, MarysLifeBlog.com, ScottsMoneyBlog.com and the big scam site: GoogleMoneyTree.com.

GoogleMoneyTree.com was one that the Bartman tried so I could include this in my book or next SEO workshop. I found out they just scam your bank account for a nice recurring fee every month all the while thinking you just paid a one time charge for the report they offer.

But when you buy the report, you never see that very clearly. Which is why there are so many hate mails and death threats to Google Money Tree as a result. You start seeing recurring charges on your PayPal account debiting your bank for the monthly recurring charge and you have no clue how they got access to your bank.

The BBB has hundreds of complaints against these websites, but GoogleMoneyTree.com tops them all.

Other websites like YoogleMoney.com and Google-money-maker.info feature believable people like Kevin Hoeffer or Mary Steadman both from San Jose Califonia who lost their jobs as "boring account temps," and miraculously turned their being laid off into a $5,000 a month or more income by filling out forms for Google.

ScottsMoneyBlog.com is another down to earth and believable website that features Scott Hunter -- another boring account rep for some manufacturing company in New York until he "wised up" and learned how to make mad cash on Google. He even has a recorded message, "How can you go wrong with a company that is publicly traded on the stock market? I knew that as a company Google was solid and the opportunity to make money with them was not BS."

Well it is pure BS and all I had to do was call our former Chief Technical Officer, who has been a full time AdSense employee at Google for three years now. Google does not have any official program like this. Scott's website at the very bottom has teensy text that does in fact disclaim that his Website has no affiliation whatsoever to Google. 

ScottsMoneyBlog.com recorded 2.2 million visitors in May 2009 according to Compete.com. This is down 4 million from April, 2009.  

The lure of what these companies offer start to get more compelling especially if your last commission or commission advance was a few months ago.

These Get Rich Quick schemes tap into our brains just like the 2 am TV infomercials for Carlton Sheets Make Money in Real Estate program. Carlton might be an okay guy but even Carlton realizes his once $299 real estate program he used to sell a few years ago had a limited life span. Because that same program today sells for under $40 bucks.  As real estate agents, nobody on Active Rain is going to buy Carlton's program... We see the Carlton info-mercial and we turn the channel.  

Why? Because as REALTORS, we know better. No matter how you package it, Carlton is out there pitching his Get Rich real estate products to the average Joe who hasn't been trained in real estate practice or real estate law. If he wanted to provide education to REALTORS, he could be doing that.. but he isn't.

REALTORS who are just now getting up to speed on how the Internet works might be lured into the spider web of the bozos offering the Get Rich Quick Schemes. Here's what to look out for; 

1.) The Google Get Rich Quick sites all look like they were all cloned from the same Monster Template.

2.) My guess is there's one guy named, "Eddie," doing the Blog scam websites and lucky for Eddie, he seems to have no shortage of work here. 

3.) Before you buy the book or free report, Google them like this:  GoogleMoneyTree.com Complaints.

This is how you find out about the firms so-called claims BEFORE you get hosed after buying their product or service.

There are so many Google Get Rich Quick schemes that Google is having a hard time keeping up with them. They're springing up like weeds. Google is aware of the problems and sources close to me at Google say there are lawsuits brewing for any website that is using the Google brand name. For now, anyone using the word Google in their AdWords ads are starting to get penalized. Many of them are about to become black listed.

GoogleMoneyTree.com was black listed. Try it and see. You won't find GoogleMoneyTree.com at all. Enter that domain name into Google search right now, and you get zero results for the domain itself. You will find 33,000 complaints and information about the site, but you cannot GO to the website anymore.

www.GoogleMoneyTree.com is officially black listed and OFF the air, and the Bartman is celebrating this event as of 10:17 am this morning.

For the REALTORS and brokers I coach -- this is VICTORY.

One LESS SEO Bozo out there to scam your money now. 

-- Bart 

NEW FLASH ---- NEWS FLASH:  Twitter Might Just be Another Time Waster.

10:43 pm. Thrusday night. Bart's house. Eldorado Subdivision, Santa Fe. 

Bringggg  Bringggggg.

My iPhone chimes go off with an Instant Message. It's from Anthony Robbins. Famous motivational guru sending out a Twitter blast. Not one, but three in a row.

I was sort of nodding off on the couch and I just started to reach the land of Nod when I get rudely interrupted by my iPhone vibrating and Bringggggg Bringgggggg chiming off every 90 seconds. Apparently he felt like he had to broadcast three messages in a row, all of them quotes from other people.  "If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to meet it." Jonathan Winters. Tiny letters say it was sent from Tweetdeck. 

You know, I'm following a lot of Twits on Twitter and for the life of me I don't know why. Aside from CNN, Dr. Oz and others I like to follow... who ARE these people? sacbookwoman, EZMoney101, ijustine from M-TV...

The one thing in common with all of these millions of people is that none of them seem to have a lot to say that's not a lot of any real value. 

I really don't care what someone had for lunch. I could care less that they are watching a rerun of Boston Legal. iJustine from M-TV asks about changing her Verizon phone plan to something else. It's a complete sea of nothing but digital noise. And stopping to read all of this crap is taking me away from getting my deadline done. What is the fascination with all of this time wasting nonsense going to do? Make Americans a lot more lazier. Do we now have to get corporate America to install filters on everyone's computer and personal phone so employees can't waste time by lolly gagging on Twitter or FaceBook?

Maybe Twitter and FaceBook is responsible for the drop in American workforce productivity?

Maybe GM would never had to go bankrupt if their assembly line workers stopped goofing off on Twitter and FaceBook and stuck to making cars. 

I mean, at 140 characters of chirping allowed, there's a lot of people all chirping things that really don't make sense. It's bad enough I have to wade through all of this on my 4 inch iPhone screen let alone subscribe to someone broadcast chirping what they're watching on TV.

But for two months, I really gave Twitter the good old "College try." I spent five hours designing my own Photoshop Twitter theme page. You can check me out and go have a look. 

Sure I was proud about the design and I blogged about it, called my family, sent emails to a few dozen clients. My mom in Alamogordo who doesn't have a computer didn't get it at all. 

I linked my Twitter account to my Blog on Active Rain. How I did that, I have no clue. Now every time I blog, I get more people following me on Twitter. And I get invited to follow them. EXERCISE: This one blog post will result in five more people following me on Twitter. I guarantee it. 

But why? Who cares about TwiTGirl96 following me who lives with her half brother in Los Angeles? Her profile says she dropped out of school and does nothing all day but watch M-TV. Is that going to help me sell more homes, get more clients or help me lose some weight? I don't think so. 

Then there's this Onion News thing that's sort of 50% news and 50% National Enquirer. Okay, so its news? But not really. I don't get it so I'm not getting it anymore. 

I was even following Ashton Kutcher, but after he was punk'd on his Twitter fiasco when we learned his Twitter-dom 1 million followers came with the help of 1,192 digital billboards across America... I stopped following Ashton weeks ago. 

I get Wired Magazine delivered to me and I read an article about the explosion of garage-developers cranking out apps that run on Twitter and FaceBook. An old classmate of mine sent me Flip Flops on FaceBook last week. It was a pair of multicolored flip flops. Just a photo of them. They looked like the cheap kind you buy at WalMart for $2 bucks. But someone had used Photoshop and made a lot of different colored flip flops. I even created my own pair and I sent Flip Flops to a friend of mine in Boston. 

He calls me up the next day and asks if I'm okay. I say sure, why? He asks, "Why did you send me a picture of colored flip flops? Am I getting a REAL pair of these in the mail from you as a gift?" I say, "No." So he asks his original question. "Why did you send these to me? It's stupid. Where's your head at, Bart?" 

At the end of the day, I can tell everybody that I've tried Twitter and I can now attest to everybody that joining them has not made me one nickel richer and I am still trying to lose 20 pounds.

- Bart

I am thinking of doing what Aaron Wall is doing with SEO Book and doing a Real Estate SEO Book. What do you guys and gals think?

Here's why.

I printed up 10,000 copies of my SEO Book last year, "The Problems with Real Estate Search... Getting FOUND."

But the problem is, I am about out of inventory and some of my content is dated. There's maybe 320 or so left and now I have to update some new things about Google's major change they made in April. So maybe a Real Estate SEO Book online will be more attractive and useful? Lots of new things happened this year with Ashton Kutcher getting punk'd on his Twitter fiasco, FaceBook, Linked In and the huge explosion in Social Networking. My thinking is a daily Real Estate SEO, "How To Book," delivered as a blog might be a better way to replace an SEO Printed Book and workshop? 

This is a scary thought just by itself. But think about this for a minute. 

When the subject matter deals with hot technologies like SEO, Social Networking, how to Chirp on Twitter... by the time the book hits the street, new things already out there have made parts of the book obsolete. So the Web is the new way we get our information now. 

PLEASE let me know what you think about a Real Estate SEO Daily Book/Blog. I encourage all comments or critiques. 

There's so much to learn by posting SEO by actual examples and real case studies of BEFORE and AFTER. 

On that very note, this chapter of SEO installment is How to Recognize the DARK Side or Black Hat SEO.

I will teach you one of the Black Hat SEO Techniques that some companies right now are doing to destroy your competitors in hard markets like San Francisco, Miami, Dallas, Houstin, Chicago and others. 

I do NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE TRY THIS. 

AND If YOU FIND THAT YOUR SEO ROCKSTAR IS DOING THIS --- OMG Be Careful so you do not get sucked down and burned at the state like TrafficPower.com did a few years ago. 

Brokers and agents are getting squeezed pretty hard to get their presence up on page one of Google. Google receives about 5 billion searches every month and still drives 68% to 74% of all real estate home searches.

I am seeing lots of honest, hard working REALTORS become frustrated and many are now considering Black Hat SEO tricks to get their websites ranked higher and I do NOT RECOMMEND THIS. 

Let's assume you have been good, and you've been paying your SEO firm (or SEO Rockstar) a lot of money but after a year, you still can't climb up on page one. The Dark side of the Force can be attractive and what I am telling you below is for informational purposes only. Because if you really want to kick Broker Bob's ass, this is the one of the fastest ways to do it and this technique is being done right now by several firms you might be hiring right now. 

Here is the technique....

Step One

You create two web pages and create a LOT of text links pointing to Broker Bob's website. Include three different text link phrases, like "dallas homes for sale," "homes for sale in Dallas," and "dallas real estate."

Step Two

You put hundreds and hundreds of these text links into these two html documents and drop them on a server somewhere with only one (1) IP address.

Step Three

Wait three months.

Step Four

Go to Google and enter in "link:broker-bobs-website.com" and if you see the four hundred new links coming into Bob's website from your one way links, you go to to Google and report Broker Bob as spamming or SPAMdexing as it is now called. Your SEO company will report them to Google using this link: http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html

Within a few days, a live human will review the report and sure enough, will find the four hundred or so links coming in from one IP address and Google will end up black listing Broker Bob.

With one LESS broker or agent website taking up residence on a page one Google search results, the odds are in your favor, that your SEO firm can move you up a notch or two.

There are lots of ways to get black listed by Google and unfortunately, I am about to blow the lid off several firms who are right now, doing this practice for hire for their clients. I just approval from my attorneys before I post the information. 

Stay tuned for more...

- Bart

It started off as a pretty busy day.

I had some new business coming at me from a client in Cabo, Mexico who needed a 360 virtual tour kit. I just finished up some work for a vacation rental client in Aspen who happens to live in Norway and as I scanned my emails... I came across a link for a five minute survey with the promise that I'd be entered into a contest that might land me a shopping spree courtesy of American Express.  The survey was offered by Vision Critical

The phones were quiet, I was enjoying my 2nd cup of coffee so I thought I'd take the survey as I had time to do this. 

Five clicks into the Survey, it wanted to know about my feelings after looking at ads posted in Forbes and Wired magazine.

Unfortunately, I clicked and clicked on the graphics, thinking the ads would enlarge like an Acrobat PDF. No such luck.

Like 94% of all advertising agencies, we are MAC based. I just got the free upgrade to Safari 4 and I thought there might be some bugs, so i switched the survey over to Mac FireFox. Same thing. I clicked on the ads, but nothing wuld enlarge.

I then had to answer multiple choice questions on the survey if I felt more or less positive about the ad. More or Less informed, etc. I blasted them and said I could not feel this way or that way because I could not read the ads. 

After 30 minutes of clicking, and saying the same thing over and over again I was compelled to know WHT and WHO was wasting my time and the time and money from Forbes and Wired magazines. Obviously the propeller heads at Vertical Response had no interest in TESTING their survey on Advertising Agency execs because we all use Mac.

I finally complete the survey and at the END I enter in my name, mailing address and email.  I click submit and the FORM will not submit. It keeps telling me i have to use a VALID "@" symbol and a period.  I'm not an idiot.  I entered in my email correctly. Not knowing if this was a SCAM or not, or just a pure blunder on  the software engineer's part... I sent an email to several Chairman and principals of Vision Critical detailing my unhappiness. 

I copied in MSNBC, CNN and I sent a personal letter to Forbes and CEO telling them they should get their money back. The firm they hired was a complete flop with my experience. It was obviously never thoroughly tested before the firm launched the survey. If it wasted my time, it certainly wasted a lot of people's time, too. Ergo -- Wired and Forbes should get their money back. 

This morning, I get this apologetic letter from Vision Critical. There is nothing of any substance here, just back tracking.

When Forbes and Wired gets my letters, I am thinking they will scream and demand their money back from this firm.

What do you think?

-- bartman

My name is Shane Singh and I work with Vision Critical. Your email below was forwarded to me so I wanted to reach out to let you know that we’re taking your situation very seriously. We happen to be the software vendor who supplies the underlying technology to companies in order for them to deploy these types of surveys. Naturally, we’re very concerned anytime we hear of stories such as your experience. At this point we’re not certain whether this is a defect in our software or whether this particular survey may have been constructed with a potential flaw in its workflow. As the software vendor, we often have little to no control over how surveys are programmed and deployed from our tool since we license the software to many end clients for them to conduct research with. That said though, we really are sensitive to anything which may indicate a fault in our software, and more importantly, cause frustration for people such as yourself.

I can assure you that the survey you were asked to participate in is fully legitimate. As an organization we go to great lengths to ensure that our tool is not being used in a malicious manner. I’m going to follow up on your issue to uncover the reasons behind why you weren’t able to complete the survey. I will be sure to let you know what we’ve found.

On behalf of our organization I would like to apologize for the experience you’ve had Mr. Wilson. I’m fully cognizant of your frustration and I sincerely hope that we can take the necessary action to rectify the situation.

Sincerely,

Shane

I was watching a TV commercial about Shredded Wheat the other day.

It was interesting. The spokesperson asks the viewer, "What has technology done for you? Has it brought you to a better place?"

At Shredded Wheat, we put the NO in Innovation.

I use this visual to bring you to the inaccurate Home Inspection Reports offered us today by Zillow or the so-called, New and Improved CyberHomes.com

I just paid $9.90 to Cyberhomes and wanted to see a house value report on the home in Santa Fe.

The price was more than $70,000 off. 

The house I am in was NOT a stick built on site home. There is no concrete foundation. The home is manufactured and was brought in in parts and assembled on site. therefore this home cannot and will not appraise as high as a stick built home with a real concrete foundation.

Last March 2008, I had a local VA approved home inspector appraise the home. He has more than 18 years of experience in this area.

Suffice it to say, I am renting this place and the home is falling apart. In short, it's a real disaster.

This kind of information will not be readily available as the home needs a bit of TLC to the tune of $42,000 of repairs. The back door and back large windows to the deck has to be completely replaced. The large windows with double seals are all broken. A cost of over $18,000. The electrical in the garage needs work and the drip water system is dead. None of the outside lights work and the home's stucco is a bit yucco. And the hot tub in the studio has windows that also have cracked seals. All of these need to be replaced, roof leaks and needs that 10 year roof foam stuff. 

The house appraised for $305,000 - $310,000.

CyberHomes said the homes value is $391,644.

Zillow says the home's value is $340,500. 

Both are wrong. Zillow's Zestimates have been wrong from day one and continue to be inaccurate. 

Nothing replaces the need for a LIVE human body, trained in how to inspect homes and provide accurate estimates of a home's true value. 

Steve Balmer screwed up again.  I'm a Mac-head and I love it. 

Put the AOL sound here: BING You got mail.

Thanks to Steve Balmer's most recent screw up, you can now make this: BING! You Got Porn!  I have GOT to find that guy that does the AOL Voice, YOU GOT MAIL so he can record this for me -- YOU GOT PORN!

This is what happens when Microsoft lets the original founders go. When Bill Gates left, Microsoft just started screwing up left and right.

Screw Up #1

Microsoft launches Vista. The worst operating system since Windows ME. Microsoft will replace VISTA with Windows 7 in Spring of 2010. 

Screw Up #2.

Steve Balmer attempts a hostile take over of Yahoo by going after their shareholders after the board told Steve, "NO."

No means no. So what does he do? He can't buy his way into the Yahoo play pen. So like a soiled little brat, he runs off to hatch BING. Another stupid, yet weak attempt to gain them more of the search market. Sorry Steve. It will never work. Give it up now. If you really want to toss your money down the drain, here is my address. Send your checks to me at this address, please:

Voyager International: 7 Avenida Vista Grande, B-7 #428 Santa Fe, NM 87508. 

Screw Up #3

Microsoft launches BING a stab at Google's dominance at the search market with nothing remarkable other than a few weak TV commercials that might make you smile. Today, AVN the Adult Video News network reported that BING when users turned off the SAFE mode, the users get flooded with PORN. Despite the fact that you might have MacAfee or Norton installed, you might want to make sure your kids don't have access to your PC and are anxious to try the new BING search engine.

If your kids do manage to get to this and they ask you why there are naked people on your computer now, you'll know what happened.

Steve Balmer's lawsuit in basket should be getting pretty full here by the end of next week when this happens. 

Get a Mac. These things won't happen if you get a Mac. 

- bartman

My phone won't stop ringing.  You might not have this problem, but I wish you could. It's a very nice problem to have.

I went home today talking to my wife in the car about how frustrated I was at not getting more projects done because I had a lot of phone calls today. 

She smiled and said, "It could be a lot worse. Your phone might not be ringing at all. We're still not out of the recession you know." 

Why is my phone ringing so much? Because I eat my own dog food. I coach REALTORS to run Press Releases on what they do. Run one at least 3 to 4 times a year.

So, I ran a Press Release on 1888PressRelease.com that simply stated we can now offer small ticket financing.

Brokers and REALTORS that need things, virtual tour cameras, built from scratch websites, Internet Marketing, SEO, custom software, lead management tools. We finally made arrangements with a national leasing company so I can offer $7,500 to $10,000 of goodies to our customers as low as $94 a month. 

People like to save money. We're offering customers a way to do that. So my phone is ringing. I have no reason to complain. 

When you run a service based business, you have to be a good listener.

After the 24th phone call, it was clear to me I was starting to feel a lot like Lucy from Charlie Brown. Remember when Luxy holds up the coffee can for psychiatric help for 5 cents?

That's me now. 

Too many customers out there are getting burned. Lied to. Cheated. Bait and Switch. Customers need to reach a live person and the firm routes their call to the sisters of voice mail mercy. It makes customers leave. 

I went to a book store in Dallas about ten years ago. The Arapaho Mall had a poster on their wall and it had this information on it.

I thought I'd share this with everybody as it has taught me how to take better care of customers that hire me.

Studies have been done which show some disturbing trends for those of us who want to remain active in real estate sales and marketing.

We need to learn from mistakes and the triumphs of others out there. It's a tragedy to hear that any brokerage goes belly up like Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy or AllPro Realty of Utah. But mistakes leave clues. While it might be painful to talk about it... a lot of Enquiring REALTORS want to know what went wrong.

Did they owe too much to REOLOGY? Should they have dumped them and gone independent a few years ago? Did they not invest enough into social networking and Internet marketing? Someone has to talk about this. This is the sixth Manhattan real estate brokerage to fail and from what I hear, there are more to follow. 

In the mean time, we all need to be doing our own independent research and stop depending on our own trade association sources of information as being the only the sole source of our real estate dogma. 

Inman News. Trone. Aberdeen. Yankee Group. Plan B Marketing.

All of these are good sources of information for you to be looking at and planning how you are going to tackle your financial future. Where are you customers going? If you're depending on REOLOGY or NAR for all of the information you need to successfully plan and build your real estate business, then you have to be content swallowing a lot of sugar coated propaganda. Because you are NOT getting the big picture as I used to say when I was a Director at Eastman Kodak. 

The National Franchises want you to be happy and feel comfortable in the pretense that they know what the Hell they're doing when it's clear their leadership is questionable at best. They have no friggin clue. If they did, you as an ERA, C21, Coldwell Banker or a Sotheby's would be getting the following:

1.) A Do It Yourself Virtual Tour Camera and training how to use it

2.) An SEO friendly, built from scratch website that has the potential of being page one on Google.

3.) Following on marketing, training on using the social media. Twitter. FaceBook. 

4.) Local marketing NAF dollars. Where did they go to? The co-cop marketing dollars are making their boat payments thanks to your continued support and paying REOLOGY your 7% royalties every month. 

Is REOLOGY or NAR telling you that 48% of all people buying anything today from trucks to homes are looking to downsize and they feel big brands have left them down? I buy the reports every year from NAR and I never see this.

68% of Americans are going with smaller brands. Coldwell Banker, ERA, C21, Sothebey's are losing to independents. These are the facts of life today. Accept and do something about it. Or put your head in the sand and soon, you'll be another CB Hunt Kennedy closing your doors in a few more months. 

FSBO's are getting super educated on what we normally provided them as full services and they are saying NO to REALTORS and listing their homes on ForSaleByOwner.com, Kayyah.com and other portals with the help of a local real estate attorney.

Many home owners are looking at REALTORS as no better than cheap used car sales people. They cannot justify coughing up 6% of their home when it sells. How do you combat that? Protection. Marketing. We have the best taxi drivers in town to take you from house to another. Get real people. This is all pure bunk now. Everybody does this. How does your brokerage stand out? Forget preaching from the REOLOGY bible. What does your gut and heart tell you that you can honestly say to a customer that makes you different than Bob the Broker down the street from Amazing Realty?

If you can't come up with a good answer, it's not a problem. Home owners are happy to say in one very loud voice: Agents? We don't need no stinking real estate agents.

So let's be realistic here and take off our rose tinted glasses;

FSBO's can get national exposure, you get the protection of a law firm and you wrap an attorney at fact transaction for $4,000 whereas a traditional brokerage selling a home at $500,000 would normally cost the home owner $30,000 in sales commissions. Many of us are at fault for this. How many listings have you put into REALTOR.com as a ghost listing?  I admit it. I've done it. So have thousands of others. 

Do the math: You use a national real estate portal to market your listing, you get a local starving agent to work for you at 2% or 3%, or you get a local real estate attorney and you pocket $25,000 in savings when your house sells. You give a customer a choice to spend $4,000 or $30,000 when their home sales and it's not hard to understand which one the home owner is going to choose here. Nobody is going to be willing to give you 6% of the home when they realize that they could pocket $26,000 of that sales commission and take the wife and enjoy four months in basking in the white beaches of Beliz sipping coconut drinks with tiny umbrellas in them.

If you keep reading I'm sorry to inform you my article gets a bit more depressing:  55% of Americans surveyed last year have lost their trust in our own government. Summer travel this year is down by 48%. Americans are staying at home. Sure Obama's recovery plan gives your next time home buyers an $8,000 tax credit and home sales are skyrocketing. But the depressing news is, mortgage rates are going up. Now what?

As President Obama pumps out the $8,000 tax credits for next time home buyers, the national debt goes up which forces increases in long term government debt which has always been tied to the mortgage rates.

Which is pure stupidity because this is like naming your dog; Stay.

Come here, Stay.  Come here, Stay.

This kind of madness stops people from buying homes again. We start buying homes. Oops. Debt is going up. Mortgage rates go up. People flinch and stop buying homes because the mortgage rate jumps a full point. Or two. At this rate, we'll be back to 7% mortgages by October and all of you will be complaining again about the market again. 

The part that really sucks about the recent Buyers Market and this recession is the huge shift in the buying behavior of your would have been next time home buyers.  73% of Americans are now shopping at less expensive retailers. Why do you think Walmart announced thousands of new jobs just this month are being created when corporate America continues to shed jobs at the rate of 500,000 a month?

Your clients want to pay less. Not 6% anymore. The writing is on the wall. 

Sometimes we all need a hard kick in the ass. This is one of them. So wake up people. 

Because the facts are a bit scary: Your so called loyal brand shoppers are switching brands for new, less known brands.

It's the same for shoppers whether they are switching from buying Del Monte Ketsup to Furr's brand and instead of using Coldwell Banker -- they're going to ForSaleByOwner.com and calling the local real estate attorney. 

There's the ugly facts. What you do with them now... is entirely up to you. 

- bartman