Real Estate Marketing SEO Blog

More Good Rain

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its mortgage applications were 10.5% above their year-ago level.
Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 6.41%, down 0.08 percentage point from the previous week. Interest rates were above year-ago levels, which averaged 6.39%.

Thanks to real estate bloggers for spreading the positive real estate news.

When It Rains it Pours II: So Much Good News

As James Brown says, "I feel good!" There is so much good news it is ridiculous.

As an addendum to the good news I listed yesterday, I wanted to add a couple more that I picked up from today's paper and Yahoo news. (I hardly ever read the morning paper). Watch how I reframe the bad news into good. I am sure you real estate pros can do this much better than I.

• The nation's poverty rate dropped last year. down from 12.6 percent in 2005.
• Average Home prices fell 3.2 percent in the second quarter, the steepest rate of decline since Standard & Poor's began its nationwide housing index in 1987.However, Seattle and Charlotte, N.C., saw prices rise in the same period. Seattle prices rose 8 percent in June while Charlotte saw a 6.8 percent increase.California overall, saw a 3.2% increase in price. It is important to remember that the cities that dropped also saw unprecedented pricing gains. So comparing this year to historical high prices will show historical drops.

When it Rains it Pours

With a Voice Comes Responsibility

I recently read a post over at Active Rain which at first appeared to be a positive story on the real estate market. I was excited and was prepared to link to the story. When I actually read the post I was dissapointed that the writer posted several reasons why the market is tanking. I cannot believe this person is a Mortgage salesman.

Why in the world would someone who sells a "widget", tell the world that "widgets" are becoming less and less of valuable?

Thought Leadership

Let's jump back to Sales 101 shall we? Belief in what you sell is job number one if you are going to be successful at selling. Additionally, as bloggers we have the unique ability, may I even say responsibility to "create the market".

First of all what is a thought leader?

Elise Bauer defines thought leadership  and writes,

“What differentiates a thought leader from any other knowledgeable company [or individual] is the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates.”  She continues, “Trust is built on reputation and reputation is generally NOT built on advertising or looking smart.” 

Wikipedia calls it a buzzword or article of jargon used to describe a person who is recognized among his or her peers for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote those ideas.

To understand how a thought leader matters is to understand that a small business blogger comes from a place of authority. Not only is this necessary to be a thought leader but it is necessary as a small business blogger.

When we come from Authority, our readers look to us for direction. If your readers are consumers, and the market is receding. Then it is receding from a lack of confidence in the market. Econ 101 right?

Another definition. This one from Tony Robbins right after 9/11. "A leader sees hope, when everything looks gloomy".

So a thought leader shows the readership why it is a terrific time to by. Either directly, or better yet he or she proves it thru opinions and facts. Reframing the data to illustrate why the future is Rosy.

Google Ads Help Your SEO? I get asked..

Someone told me if you use Google Analytics and Adwords, you rankings will be higher.  Do you agree?

Videos The Future of Online Marketing

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70% of those who use the Internet have broadband. So video is a no brainer.

Pew Internet & American Life Project says 57% of Internet users have watched videos online and most of them share what they find with others -- 19% do so in a typical day. 74% of broadband users who enjoy high-speed connections at both home and work watch or download video online.

Parking by Association

The power of a professional association knows no bounds. It is like a Union for White Collar workers. I am no fan of the most Board of Realtors as I liken them to the worst of DMV stereotypes.  But the following brings up very funny images to mind.

Apprently the Chicago City Clerks office is giving priority parking permits for individuals that have paid off the city...I mean fit a certain professional profile. Like Doctors, Nurses, and Realtors!

I get images of Dano throwing the siren on top of his 1976 Buick as they whisk away to save another citizen.

Thanks to real estate ninja for this find.

Coloring Your Google Bar Green

The Number One Mistake That Websites Make

Forgive me for the hype. But the way I see it, traffic is more important than anything else. If no one sees your site, what good is all the great content? Its kind of the "what came first the chicken or the egg?" scenario. This is the pervasive argument amongst online marketers. You might have heard that content is King. I agree. But links are the soldiers that let the Kingdom know who is King.

So the way that you can check how many links a site has is by going to Yahoo and typing in the site's URL. If you are researching links, often times we are told to look at backward links.

This shows a sites Link Popularity.

If You Snooze You Lose

Foreclosures are up , Prices are up, Sales lag. Huh?

Is the world going crazy? How is this possible? Despite heavy foreclosure data, and bad news, there is good news in the market. What are you going to believe? Whose job is it to SELL the good news? The newspapers? Yah right. Your franchise? Not going to happen as they are too busy selling franchises and trying to keep out of court.

Do you a have a website? How about a blog? Are you an evangelist? This right out of NAR:

Price Trends Improve During the second quarter, home prices improved in the majority of U.S. metro areas. Price increases were apparent in 97 of the 149 metropolitan statistical areas surveyed by NAR. That compares with just 83 metro areas that had price increases in the first quarter of 2007, and 68 areas in the fourth quarter of 2006.

“Although home prices are relatively flat, more metro areas are showing price gains since bottoming-out in the fourth quarter of 2006,” says Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist. “Recent mortgage disruptions will hold back sales temporarily, but the fundamental momentum clearly suggests stabilizing price trends in many local markets.”

The Message to your market: If You Snooze You Lose.

Selling the "fear of loss" is how you  made your living during the boom years.  Here is your chance again.

Karma

Karma is that word that self important people use to say that what goes around comes around.

But I would like to discuss it with a twist.

You see Google bought a free blog host company a few years back. This purchase of Blogspot served as a Go signal that the blog race was on.

I get Questions:

I guess this question was was asked in order to test my Googling skills:

Aloha Tim,

I’m interested to know what is the percentage of women vs. mean in real estate?
In Hawaii it’s pretty obvious that there are more females in the industry then but I not sure
Whats the percentage?