Real Estate Marketing Blog

From idea to self fullfilled prophesy

Have you ever had a millionaire idea and sat on it? A year goes by and you are in a far off city, and there is someone profiting from your idea. I remember reading about this in Tony Robbins first book.

It is in a way what the Movie the Secret was all about.

Robbins points out that in a study about living connections, researchers killed a mother bunny. On a far off remote location they measured the reactions from the offspring of this "murdered" mother bunny.  The remarkable thing is that these babies reacted quite measurably on the research instruments.

He wrote about monkeys on an island discovered a new food source by digging into the sand. Never had this species ever ate this particular food.  It was not long before the same species of monkey was eating the same food on other far off islands.

Ideas somehow transmit to others across distance. This is not meant to be an esoteric discussion. I am really leading to a point that we in the electronic media have a voice. Like it or not if you blog, you are a thought leader. Which way are you leading is the question?

If you would like to see how it works, just distance yourself from your political point of view and watch as the influential on either side spread an idea. It is quite remarkable. And pretty soon these ideas become fact.

I believe markets follow ideas. Your home sales are born from perception.

Blind Eye of the Law Just Got Glasses

As Realtors you have a number of liability issues that can send you checking for that E&O policy. Disclosures, fiduciary responsibilities and more seem to make your business less about sales and more about CYA.

Well, the Wild West of the Internet, where you thought you did not need to worry much about silly lawyer games might end. You see once it is proven to a sue happy lawyer that there is "money in them thar hills", the suits will come a knocken.

Page Rank is Dead

Page Rank

Well there has been a flurry of blog activity complaining of Google's draconian "slap" of prominent sites such as the SFGate, CopyBlogger, Washington Post, Forbes & many many more. As Page Rank levels have dropped 1 or in some cases 2 levels.

Now Page Rank is the relative importance of a Page and was really what launched Google. Link popularity was nothing new as it was a prime part of the Inktomi Technology that Yahoo owned, but Larry Page took it a step further.

Real Estate Twit

Just when I was about to look for ways to reduce my categories I go and add a new one about Social Media and Real Estate called Socially real estate.

What motivated me was that I saw that the LA Fire Department is using Twitter to announce incidents. Check out the page. This would be a great resource for a news team, let alone other rescue workers. I knew I would find a way to use the fires to talk about marketing. Twitter is the application that is sort of a mini blog.

So what kind of application could you use to Twitter?

• Listings
• Offers
• A day in the life of a Realtor
• Steps of a Listing

Any more ideas?

Fire Relief Resources

Relief Efforts to help the victims:

• Beach Cities Health District is collaborating with Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach to collect clothing and household items on behalf of Goodwill Industries. Checks made out to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund also will be accepted. They can be earmarked Southern California Wildfires, San Diego Wildfires or Malibu Wildfires.
• Starting today through Sunday, anyone may drop off items in good condition or make donations at the Hermosa Beach Fire Department, 540 Pier Ave.; Marine Avenue Sports Complex Hall, 1635 Marine Ave., Manhattan Beach; and Beach Cities Health District back parking lot, 514 N. Prospect Ave., Redondo Beach.
• Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores, which donated $250,000 to the Red Cross, will accept cash donations at 208 locations statewide.
• A list of hantional Relief ORganizations can be found here: www.networkforgood.org
• Volunteer time thru www.helpindisaster.org. Do not just show up.
• www.redcrossla.org
• To donate to the Salvation Army, go to www.salvationarmy.com
• The Governor has set up a hotline for businesses interested in making bulk donations to people displaced by the fires. The number is 800-750-2858. It will be staffed from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. by officials from the governor's Office of Emergency Services. Information is available at www.oes.ca.gov.

Good Deeds:

Rebecca Chambliss a Realtor in San Pedro coordinated a relief caravan to bring supplies to volunteers working with the many horses and other animals abandoned in north San Diego County.

Bay Area families open their homes to fire evacuees

I would love to post more news of people helping these victims. If you know of any links or stories post them in the comments. If you know of any other relief organizations list them in the comments.

Southern California Burning

As an Angeleno I feel I must make mention of the single largest fire emergency in California's history.

Fully 1 Million people have evacuated their homes. Many of those do not have a home to call home anymore. People are living in their cars and stadiums like Qualcomm and Del Mar Race Track .

Google interactive Fire Map-find out the current status of the blazes

Countrywide to Refinance Mortgages

Countrywide to Refinance Up to $16 Billion of Loans

The so called bubble is wrought with blame.

From Greenspan to Realtors, certainly everyone can pick up a piece of the blame.

Real Estate Marketing and Keyword Meta Tags

I cannot tell you how many times a week that I get a phone call from a client or a potential real estate client whom asks about keyword meta tags.

Now, I must say in case you do not know, the meta keyword died a decade ago. Well at least it seems like it was that long. It was a wonderful way to stuff keywords into your page. It died about the same time as the alt tag died as a useful way to get the engine to recognize you as an authority for a phrase.

Yet, the myth lives on.

So about a week ago I read an interesting article about a study about the human need to bias oneself towards that which is false.

Some of the more interesting takes were that we all :

The Great Equalizer

Compare Title Insurance Rates

The CLTA the California Land Title Association has finally launched the obvious.

A title insurance comparison tool. Here it is.

This is not likely to make our Title Agents happy. Especially if the end user, the homeowners get wind. However, it might be some secret relief for the real estate agency as it will help empower the consumer to make their own title choices.

How Does Google Work?

Portfolio.com has a nice interactive time line on the evolution of Google from Search to Adwords to YouTube.

But they also have a terrific schematic of how Google works once you make a query.

From the query to the results page. To the un-initiated you will find this quite illuminating as you will learn how a search results page is made up and that it comes from a plethora of sources.