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Half-built dreams in still-shaky Southland housing market | Mount Kisco Realtor
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Daily Archives: December 2, 2012
Widows Pushed Into Foreclosure by Mortgage Fine Print | Waccabuc Realtor
Ms. Bates, 70, is caught in a foreclosure trap that is ensnaring widows across America: she cannot get help lowering her payments until her name is added to the mortgage note, but the lender says she must be current on payments before that can happen.
“I keep praying,” said Ms. Bates, who is fighting with the bank to stay in the four-bedroom house.
Just as the housing market is recovering, a growing group of homeowners — widows over the age of 50 whose husbands alone were holders of the mortgage — are losing their homes to foreclosure because of a paperwork flaw that keeps them from obtaining loan modifications.
In the latest chapter of the foreclosure crisis, homeowners over 50 are falling into foreclosure at the fastest pace of any age group, according to nationwide data, in part because women are outliving their spouses and are unable to cope with cuts in their pensions, ballooning medical costs — and the fine print on their mortgages.
While there are no exact measures of how many widows have entered foreclosure, figures compiled by AARP show the rate of foreclosures among people over 50 increased by 23 percent from 2007 to 2011, resulting in 1.5 million foreclosures.
A few lenders have tweaked their procedures to navigate the problem, and housing advocates are petitioning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to devise guidelines for lenders in situations that involve surviving relatives. Banks say that while the volume of delinquent mortgages means that they need a blanket policy to cover all homeowners who are behind on their payments, they are willing to work closely with widows.
Still, interviews with elder-care advocates, housing lawyers and borrowers suggest that the problem is spreading fast, propelled by an aging population. Legal aid offices in California, Florida, Ohio and New York say it is among the top complaints from clients. Billy Howard, a consumer lawyer in Tampa, Fla., said he had more than two dozen cases involving widows, up from virtually none before 2007.
“These women are essentially invisible,” said Gladys Gerson, a lawyer for Coast to Coast Legal Aid of South Florida.
At first glance, the issue seems little more than a logistical headache. To stay in the home, and play slot game to earn and pay bills, the surviving spouse needs to take over the mortgage. But to do that, most banks require that the borrower assuming the mortgage be up-to-date on payments. Housing advocates say that their clients, especially if one spouse experienced a prolonged illness, often find they are already thousands of dollars behind.
“Surviving spouses are trapped without a clear way to preserve their home,” said Arabelle Malinis, a lawyer at Housing and Economic Rights Advocates in California.
The conundrum is pushing some widows into foreclosure by choking off a lifeline that could save their homes. As of 2011, 6 percent of loans held by people over 50 were delinquent, up from about 1 percent in 2007, according to a July study by AARP, an advocacy group for Americans over 50. The study, which housing lawyers say accurately describes the tide of foreclosures on seniors’ homes, analyzed mortgage data over a five-year period.
Part of the problem, according to Debra Whitman, AARP’s executive vice president for policy, is that older Americans are saving less and borrowing more. Debt for Americans ages 65 to 74 is outpacing any other group, according to the Federal Reserve.
Some help is on the way. JPMorgan Chase, for example, allows surviving relatives to complete a loan modification and mortgage assumption simultaneously. And the consumer bureau is finishing rules to provide tighter oversight of mortgage servicing companies, which collect payments from homeowners.
Housing advocates say most of their widowed clients still remain in their foreclosed homes.
The trouble for Ms. Bates, of Jacksonville, Fla., began after her husband Robert, a World War II veteran, died last February. Mr. Bates had obtained a trial loan modification but died before he could make the first payment. Determined to make good on the hard-won plan, Ms. Bates said she notified HSBC, the servicer, of her husband’s death and sent in a check for $1,125.47.
Ms. Bates said she was devastated when the check was returned, with a letter explaining the money could not be accepted because she was not on the mortgage. Ms. Bates still owes roughly $131,000 on the original $140,000 mortgage. HSBC declined to comment on the case, but said in a statement, “HSBC has a strong commitment to home preservation and regards foreclosure as a last resort.”
Complaints from widows about botched forms, unanswered calls and the peculiar frustration of being asked repeatedly by servicers for the same documents echo the concerns that culminated in a $26 billion settlement in February over other mortgage flaws with the country’s five largest mortgage servicers.
via nytimes.com
Rising home prices signaling ‘recovery’ | Katonah Realtor
Rising home prices signal ‘recovery,’ analysts sayU.S. home prices rose in September for the sixth straight month, despite seasonal weakness, signaling that the housing market is “in the midst of a recovery,” according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index released this week. The index that looks at 20 cities showed that prices have gained 3% over the past 12 months, echoing other recent positive housing data, such as gains in new construction and existing-home sales. However, despite recent increases, prices are about 30% below peak levels in 2006. And the housing market still faces challenges from shadow inventory, and tight credit standards.Read more about home prices.Sandy hits new-home sales Sales of new single-family homes in the U.S. ticked down in October, with a large drop in the hurricane-hit Northeast while there was a record surge in the Midwest, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Commerce. By region, sales in October fell 32% in the Northeast and 12% in the South. Monthly sales rose a record 62% in the Midwest and 9% in the West. While the new-home-sales data are volatile on a monthly basis, a trend over the last few months has been steady, showing an average U.S. annualized rate of almost 370,000. That average rate is up 17% from a year earlier, but far below a peak rate of almost 1.4 million in 2005.Read more about new-home sales.Third-quarter growth revised higher, but…The government’s estimate for economic growth in the third quarter was revised higher this week, but the news wasn’t entirely rosy. A large portion of the higher estimate is due to inventories, which can be positive or negative. If these goods are sold soon, then the inventories were a good bet. If not, companies will have excess supply on their hands. Read more about GDP.Residential investment grows in third quarterThe economy’s expansion in the third quarter was also due, in part, to faster growth in the housing sector, government analysts said. In the third quarter, residential fixed investment grew at an annualized rate of 14.2%, compared with 8.5% in the second quarter. However, looking longer term, this sector has lost much of its heft. Residential fixed investment— which measures purchases of homes — currently accounts for about 2.5% of the economy, down from a bubble peak of more than 6% in 2005. Read more about GDP. Breakdown of GDP
After consumption was largely responsible for growth in the second quarter, there was a more evenly divided split between consumption, investment and government spending this time around. The big push behind government spending is a one-time boost in defense spending, so that is not likely to be sustained in the fourth quarter.
10 Most Expensive Cities To Buy A Home | Pound Ridge Realtor
24/7 Wall St.: The U.S. home prices have begun to rebound in the past year. And in the most expensive markets, where the average home sells for well over $1 million, recoveries are among the strongest, increasing between 20% and 50% in most cases.
According to Coldwell Banker Real Estate, there are at least ten U.S. cities where the average listing price for a home in the first six months of this year exceeded $1.2 million. The majority of these are located on or near the California Coast. For example, San Jose suburb Los Altos, homes sold in the first half of the year averaged a $1.7 million price tag. Based on data provided by Coldwell Banker, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the most expensive cities for buying a home.
In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Coldwell Banker COO and President Budge Huskey explained that for the first time in years, residents of the country’s most expensive housing markets are largely professionals working in or very near their home. In prior years, he explained, many of the most expensive communities were simply very desirable for wealthy families or individuals, without necessarily being employment centers. Many of these people were retired or worked from home.
“Now,” Huskey said, “the emphasis is on those markets that are in proximity to true, strong business centers, where employment has been consistent, and the overall level of wealth and wages has been high relative to other opportunities within the country.”
These expensive markets are concentrated around the tech industry, which has remained strong throughout the recession. As a result, many of these cities and suburbs are near the heart of California’s Silicon Valley. Six are located in either the San Francisco or San Jose metropolitan area. These are areas driven by the tech boom, explained Huskey. “In an area like Los Altos, for example, you’re looking at a location that is 15 minutes away from the headquarters of such corporate giants as Google and Facebook.”
Income in the expensive housing markets is among the highest in the country. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, median household income in these cities far exceeds the U.S. median income by at least $20,000. In Saratoga, California, one of the cities on our list, median income is nearly triple the U.S. figure of $51,914.
The two cities not in California on this list are Kailua, Hawaii, and Rye, New York. In the case of Rye, the city is located within the expensive Westchester County, within commuting distance from New York City. According to Huskey, desirable communities with access to New York City have remained stable and high-priced.
In Kailua, located on the island of Oahu — the same island as Honolulu — high prices are reflective of most of the real estate market in Hawaii. The state has limited available property, explained Huskey, which drives up prices. “While there’s only one particular market in Hawaii that reached the top ten, Hawaii proved the most expensive on an aggregate measure.”
Based on data published by Coldwell Banker in its annual Home Listing Report, 24/7 Wall St. identified the country’s most expensive cities for buying a home. Homes in these cities had the highest average listing price between January and June of this year. Markets with less than ten four-bedroom, two-bath homes were excluded from the survey. We also examined data on vacancy rates, median price per square foot, and changes in price from real estate listing service Trulia. Information on income, educational attainment, and poverty rate, among other data, is from the U.S. Census Bureau.
These are the 10 most expensive cities to buy a home:
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10. San Carlos, CA
<strong>Avg. listing price:</strong> $1,230,880 <strong>Median household income:</strong> $110,929 <strong>Pct. households $200,000+ income:</strong> 30.3% As of 2010, the median income of households in San Carlos was more than double the U.S. median of $51,914. Over 30% of households in San Carlos earned more than $200,000 per year, more than five times the national rate of 5.4%. San Carlos is one of the most expensive housing markets in the San Francisco metropolitan area. Over a twelve month period, ending in October, it had the nation’s highest median home price per square foot at $473 among all homes listed, according to Trulia. In San Francisco, the median age of home inventory was just 45 days as of the third quarter of 2012, according to Realtor.com, lower than in all but seven markets. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.
9. Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
Avg. listing price: $1,232,167 Median household income: $74,489 Pct. households $200,000+ income: 18.7% Carmel-by-the-Sea, a small coastal city in California, is well-known for its former mayor, actor Clint Eastwood. Currently, the average four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in the city lists for more than four times the nationwide average listing price of $292,152. With nearly 19% of households earning more than $200,000 in 2010, many families and individuals in the small town can afford expensive properties. One house, despite being not much larger than 2,000 square feet, is currently listed for nearly $4.5 million. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.
8. Kailua, HI
Avg. listing price: $1,238,208 Median household income: $91,082 Pct. households $200,000+ income: 14.7% Kailua is one of just two cities on this list not located in California. The O’ahu Island city is 12 miles northeast of Honolulu, which had a vacancy rate of 2.7% — better than most areas but considerably worse than the other areas on the list. As of October, the median price per square foot for a home in the Honolulu area was $398, more than in any other metro except for San Francisco. According to Trulia, a 0.75 acres plot of land, which includes 128 feet of beachfront, is currently for sale for $16 million in Kailua. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.
7. Rye, NY
Avg. listing price: $1,312,250 Median household income: $146,069 Pct. households $200,000+ income: 53.0% The average listing price for a four-bedroom home in Rye is more than $1,300,000, or more-than $1 million above the U.S. average. Employees in the often high-paying finance and insurance industries accounted for a 27.8% of employed population in Rye in 2010, well above the 7% average rate nationwide. As of 2010, 53% of households earned more than $200,000 annually, more than any other expensive city, and nearly 10 times the national rate of 5.4%. Additionally, just 1.3% of households lived below the poverty line versus 13.8% nationwide. Among the properties available for sale are a five-bedroom, 7,446 square feet waterfront home for $12.9 million and a 34.2 acre plot of land for $19 million. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.
6. Los Gatos, CA
Avg. listing price: $1,444,214 Median household income: $120,971 Pct. households $200,000+ income: 37.5% Los Gatos is one of several cities near San Jose on this list. Like these cities, Los Gatos likely benefits from the overall boom in the San Jose real estate market, which currently has the lowest vacancy rate of all metro areas surveyed by Trulia at just 1%. Currently, a number of unique properties are available in the city, including an 11,000 square feet property with an eight stall horse barn and a garage that fits 12 cars listed at slightly under $13 million. Also for sale is the former home of Apple Inc.’s co-founder Steve Wozniack. It is currently listed for $4.5 million. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.
5. Palo Alto, CA
Avg. listing price: $1,495,364 Median household income: $120,670 Pct. households $200,000+ income: 39.3% In Palo Alto, 48.7% of adults have a graduate or professional degree — well more than four times the national rate of 10.3%. The city’s proximity to Stanford University, one of the top universities in the nation, may be partly the reason behind the city’s highly educated population. Among the companies headquartered in the city are Hewlett-Packard and Tesla Motors. The city is a large employer of highly skilled employees, as 25.3% of its workers are employed in professional, scientific and management occupations, well above the 10.4% of workers nationwide. Perhaps the most famous resident of Palo Alto is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who Read more at 24/7 Wall St.
4. Menlo Park, CA
Avg. listing price: $1,506,909 Median household income: $107,860 Pct. households $200,000+ income: 34.9% Menlo Park is one of just four cities where the average listing price for a four-bedroom home exceeds $1.5 million. As of 2010, the median income in the city was slightly below $108,000. However, the recent Facebook IPO has been a windfall to the area. In June, real estate listing service Zillow reported that the “proportion of million-dollar listings” in Menlo Park — where Facebook is headquartered — rose by 87% between the company’s IPO filing and its first day as a public company. Among the houses available in Menlo Park are a five-bedroom home with a gym, theater area and wine cellar, which is listed for $4.6 million, and a six-bedroom 5,200 square feet home that’s listed for slightly under $5 million. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.
3. Saratoga, CA
Avg. listing price: $1,582,434 Median household income: $145,023 Pct. households $200,000+ income: 43.1% Though home prices in the nearby San Jose metro area fell by 25.1% peak-to-trough, Saratoga is yet another example of how the Silicon Valley housing market has recovered. Currently, the median price per square foot for homes in San Jose is $337, according to Trulia, more than all housing markets except San Francisco and Honolulu. Prices for many homes in the area have skyrocketed, according to listings on Zillow. A home currently listed for nearly $10 million last sold for just over $2.1 million in 2000, while a home listed for $14.9 million last sold in 1994 for just over $1 million. As of 2010, 43.1% of Saratoga households earned more than $200,000 per year, while 40.9% of adult residents had a graduate degree, versus 10.3% nationwide. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.
2. Newport Beach, CA
Avg. listing price: $1,658,000 Median household income: $107,007 Pct. households $200,000+ income: 37.6% Outside of Northern California, Newport Beach is the most expensive city to buy a home. Home prices are so high in the city that in 2009 legendary bond investor Bill Gross bought a nine-bedroom, 11,000 square feet home for $23 million — and then tore it down. In 2011, Gross listed the empty plot of land for $26.5 million. Orange County as a whole has a vacancy rate of just 1.5%, among the ten lowest in the nation. Despite a 32.7% drop in home prices from peak to trough during the recession, Orange County’s median price per square foot is $265. This trails only the Honolulu, New York, San Francisco and San Jose metro areas. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.
1. Los Altos, CA
Avg. listing price: $1,706,688 Median household income: $149,964 Pct. households $200,000+ income: 43.6% In Los Altos, the average four-bedroom, two-bathroom home lists for nearly $50,000 more than any other city in the nation. According to Coldwell Banker, for that price a buyer could purchase 28 similar homes in Redford, Mich., the nation’s cheapest housing market. In Redford, the average home lists for just $60,490. Currently, asking prices in the San Jose metro area have risen 12.7% year-over-year, according to Trulia. This is more than nearly every other metro area in the country. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.
Small Town Job Recovery | Bedford Hills Homes for Sale
Delaying repairs may cost landlords | Katonah NY Real Estate
Water heater image via Shutterstock.
Q: The water heater at the rental we own broke and we had a hard time getting it replaced (we do all of the repairs ourselves). After a week, the problem was solved, but our tenants are demanding that we compensate them for expenses they incurred as a result of our tardy work. They’re asking to be reimbursed for their stay at a motel, several days’ worth of meals, and the added costs of transportation that resulted from living further away from work and school. It’s quite a bill! We admit to being less than on the ball with the repair, but do we have to pay these expenses? –Martha and John
A: Lack of hot water in a residential rental is a serious problem, and in every state but Arkansas, it’s a violation of the warranty of habitability. Depending on the state, tenants have various remedies if they alert landlords of the problem but the landlord fails to act reasonably promptly. Remedies include repairing the problem and deducting the cost from the rent, withholding rent, and living with the problem but suing later for a retroactive rent reduction, called rent abatement.
Another remedy includes procuring substitute housing during the time that the deficiency persists. Several states allow for this option, including Alaska, Connecticut and Tennessee. In these states, however, the approach isn’t uniform — should the tenant be compensated for substitute housing and be excused from paying rent? If so, this presents the tenant with a chance for a windfall — if the pro-rated rent is lower than the daily substitute housing, the tenant is “making money” on the deal, though few tenants would willingly choose the disruption to their lives caused by such a move.
You’ll need to find out how your state handles the issue of substitute housing. As for the other bills you’ve been presented with, these expenses are a bit more attenuated, but they follow from having to move away. Unless the motel had a kitchen, your tenants were obligated to get take-out or go to restaurants. And, unless they chose a location needlessly far away from school and work, their added commute costs were also an unavoidable result of having to move out temporarily.
Landlords in your position have been asked to foot the bill for items such as increased utility bills, the cost of replacement heaters, child care expenses (required because children could not stay comfortably or safely at home) and so on.
This has been an expensive lesson. In the future, it may be cheaper to hire a plumber than wait for the weekend to do it yourselves.
Q: The lease we are about to sign has a clause that says the winner of any lawsuit gets to recover attorney fees and court costs from the loser. Is this a good idea? –James and Ella
A: This “two way” attorney fee clause is common in contracts and leases. The idea is to make it clear to both sides, before a dispute has even broken out, that bringing a worthless lawsuit is likely to be an expensive affair. If the person who brings the bogus lawsuit loses, he pays not only his own costs and fees, but the other side’s, too. The clause also encourages both sides to work out legitimate differences between them, without involving a court. No one, even someone who is sure he’s in the right, can guarantee that a judge or jury will agree; far better to compromise than risk losing and having to pay your own and the other side’s costs, too.
In residential lease situations, the analysis takes a slightly different turn. Precisely because the clause will discourage litigation, tenants may hesitate to bring lawsuits to enforce their rights, fearful that if they lose, they’ll have to pay big time. In a similar vein, landlords may find the right to collect from the losing tenant an academic right — few tenants have the resources to write a check for attorney fees and court costs. These landlords would prefer a world in which each side pays its own costs and fees, which is the rule most of the time.
via inman.com
Seth’s Blog: Thank you, Zig | South Salem Real Estate
My teacher Zig Ziglar died this morning. He was 86.
Thanks for teaching me how to sell and why it mattered.
Thanks for reminding me how much it mattered to care.
Thanks for telling us a fifteen-minute story about Johnny the Shoe Shine Genius, so compelling that I flew to the airport just to meet him.
Thanks for 72 hours of audiotapes, listened to so many times I wore out the cassettes twice.
Thanks for that one day we spent backstage together in Milwaukee.
Thanks for making goal setting so clear.
Thanks for elevating the art of public speaking, and making it personal, not something to be copied.
Thanks for believing in us, the people you almost never met in person, for supporting us with your voice and your stories and your enthusiasm.
Thanks for teaching so many people, people who will continue to remember you and to teach as well.
You’ll be missed.
The Weekly Online Video News Round Up – Final Cut Edition | North Salem Homes
This week I’ve got to get the final cut of the pilot episode over to the contest people. But, as always, I’ve been keeping an eye on the industry to see how things are going and this week there’s some interesting stuff from the likes of Comcast and Verizon of all places. Check it out and enjoy your morning coffee.
Comcast Adds Offline iOS/Android Viewing To Xfinity TV Player
Comcast has brought video on-demand streaming to subscriber’s mobile devices since early last year, but now an update has added the option to download (some) content for offline viewing. Arriving simultaneously on iOS and Android, the Xfinity TV Player apps support downloads from premium channels Showtime (which was also one of the first up for streaming when that launched), Starz, Encore, and MoviePlex.
Source: EngadgetVerizon Makes 75 Channels Available Via Its iPad App
Verizon Communications is making 75 live networks available through its updated app for iPad tablets for FiOS TV and Internet customers — but unlike services from competitors like Cablevision Systems and Time Warner Cable, the telco’s tablet TV lineup currently lacks broadcast networks and local channels. The updated FiOS Mobile app for iPad was published in the Apple iTunes App Store on Wednesday (last week).
To use the feature, customers must subscribe to both FiOS Internet and TV service, and must use a Verizon-provided router. Live TV on the iPad is accessible only within a customer’s home over Wi-Fi.Rovi TV Guide Listings to End
Rovi has started shutting off the TV listings data it has provided in over-the-air broadcasts to dozens of consumer-electronics device models in North America — and will completely end the service by April 2013 — a move that has infuriated consumers who claim it will render their DVRs useless.
The company said its agreements with data broadcasting partners CBS and National Datacast Inc. (NDI), a for-profit subsidiary of PBS, are coming to an end.
Source: Multichannel News
RedBox Instant Set for Holidays
The online video joint venture Redbox Instant by Verizon is set to launch sometime before the end of the year. The service is currently being tested in private beta, and Verizon and Redbox have kept mum on some key details. Subscriptions start at $6 a month. An $8 a month membership adds four Redbox credits to the streaming package that can be redeemed for Redbox DVD rentals. Redbox Instant is using Silverlight for streaming on the web.
Source: GigaOm
Chill Direct’s New Platform Empowers Artists to Distribute Content Directly to Fans
Chill (www.chill.com), the Web’s premier video discovery portal today launched the entertainment industry’s first turnkey platform for artists to produce, own and distribute content directly to their fans, dubbed “Chill Direct.” The self-service platform is the first of its kind and makes it dead simple for artists to globally distribute premium video to all desktop, mobile and Internet connected televisions.
Chill Direct is a fully socially integrated platform that allows any filmmaker, comedian, musician, or artist to directly release premium video to the fans who love them. Building on the success of content creators who have made specials and albums directly available to audiences for personal download, Chill Direct expands on this emergent model, empowering artists to engage their fan bases and build full-scale customizable community hubs where fans and artists can interact.
Unlike releasing content through app stores, music stores, a broadcast network or film studio, Chill Direct imbues artists with creative control and flexibility over their material and allows them full ownership of Intellectual Property. Chill Direct also helps artists build powerful social communities around their work through integration with Facebook and Twitter and world-class page creation tools.
Source: Press Release
Test the Encoding.com Private Cloud and enter to win $1000 of free encoding credit
At Encoding.com, we all agree that building the world’s most powerful private cloud transcoding platform is a good time. Even more fun is watching our resident stunt goat Clive take it for a test drive. Unfortunately, even the great Clive went from goat to chicken when he overheard the roar of 32 core multi-threading servers and 1Gbps ingest/egress usingAspera fasp 3™ technology.
Therefore, we are offering a reward of $1,000 in free encoding credit to the Encoding.com community member willing to brave unprecedented speed, put the pedal to the metal, and encode the largest volume of video in December using Encoding.com private cloud!
Using the Encoding.com Private Cloud is easy, you can keep all of your encoding settings the same and simply specify a new region in your API request. Click here for complete instructions.
The rules are simple:
– Only one winner will be selected
– Encoding credit will be awarded to the primary account holder
– Encoding credit may only be redeemed by the primary account holder
– Encoding credit must be used by 1/1/2014
– Encoding credit is not applicable for discounts on existing contractsSource: Blog Post
via reelseo.com
Why’d You Choose That Domain Name? | Mt Kisco Realtor
Let’s admit one thing. We all started this web thing honestly, naively.
Our first site was designed to help people, to fill a gaping void we saw in the online world.
We wanted to do so much good.
Where, then, did it go so wrong? And why? Why did we end up with a website like “www.how-to-earn-money-online.com” that we can barely mention across the dinner table without blushing?
In this post, I’m going to target the psychology behind our seemingly harmless paths to web domination. I’ve been curious for a while about why a few of us start the Zygna.coms and Digg.coms while others go a, well, different path. It all dates back to the mid 1970s, when a man name Albert Bandura, the guy behind Social Cognitive Theory, examined how we seek to replicate success we see in our surroundings and in media, often at all costs. It gets a bit creepy.
Day 1: A new beginnning
It all began with GoDaddy.
“What is GoDaddy?” we ask Google. And Google responds with a full tutorial on GoDaddy.
“Thank you, Google. Now I’ve got my first domain and I have no idea how to use it.”
Well at some point, no thanks to GoDaddy, we find Blogger or WordPress. Your first domain name most-likely had a .blogspot or .wordpress in it. Hello, new blog.
“Wow, this is so interesting,” we think. “I can write posts, post images, create links, and put things in my side bar. And what exactly is a sidebar? I’m going to grow this blog to be huge! I’m getting 100 views a day! Wait, I was tracking my own views. Shut that off. So this actually is difficult … okay, I can handle that.”
We set up our first Google Analytics profile and hardly use it. We’re too focused positioning Adsense ads and garnering Facebook likes.
“Suggest to friends? I think so. Why did he not like it? Not my friend anymore! Write posts, write posts, write posts. Write even more. How am I ever going to have as many posts as that other site? Three a week, that’s it. Must happen. Three great posts of 500 words at least. More coffee. You can do this! Backlinks. Backlins! Need more. Alexa tells me I don’t have enough. Must network. Got one! Got a tweet too! Oh my dear god prepare yourself for traffic! Traffic didn’t come…why not? More posts … more domination!”
At some fateful point after much deliberation we decide to hack off the .blogger/.wordpress and basically think the world will rejoice over our decision.
“Sigh, they don’t. People don’t care. They’re focused on their own websites. Oh well, more networking, more Facebook marketing! Backlinks!”
Day 2: Day 1 got old
At some point in blogging, we become jaded. It just isn’t like it was on Day 1. Our community blog, our niche review site, and our Google Adsense landing page just didn’t work as planned. It wasn’t all we were told it would be, but we did learn in the process.
So, we start a new blog. We suck up our pride. We hobble back over to the computer. We probably woke up later that day because we were up late making it big the night before.
This is where it gets interesting.
The day we start up a second website defines us in our blogging careers.
Why? Because (in case you didn’t realize yet) everyone starts a semi-successful-yet-pretty-mediocre website at first, then moves on to another project. It’s in that second project that we either:
- show the world we’ve learned from our mistakes and are ready to build something useful, or
- totally sell out and continue down the path to eventual existential failure.
I’m sorry, but it’s one or the other. Which path are you on?
Maybe you’re on a different path?! If so, let’s hear about it in the comments.
Day 3: Pick a new domain
It may not be on actual day 3 of blogging, but the “third day” in your blogging career is the day you choose your next domain name. On Day 1 you made your first website, on Day 2 you decided to build another one, and on Day 3 you picked this new domain. And on Day 7 s/he rested.
So what did you pick?
The brandable domain
If you picked a brandable domain then I’d like to buy you a beer. I’m proud of you. A brandable domain is something like “Twitter.com”. It’s something like “Coursehero.com” or “Koofers.com”. It’s a brother of “Problogger.net” and a cousin of “Alexa.com”. Its recognizable. It stands out.
It holds its own in a conversation across the dinner table. (Should that be the new standard?)
People learn not just from trying and failing, but from observing, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes for means of survival, what works for our peers.—Albert Bandura
The importance of a brandable domain is five-fold:
- Unique: It stands out.
- Recognizable: People remember it.
- Bizarre: It’s weird enough to generate some intrigue the first time someone hears it.
- Worth mentioning: People want to talk about weird things.
- Worth putting on a t-shirt: Yes, you would consider wearing that logo with it’s branded image on a t-shirt.
If you picked a brandable domain I commend you because, while you won’t get immediate “direct match” traffic from Google, you will get many more returning visits because you have a pretty cool concept.
These websites are more likely to get blog comments and will inevitably build larger email followings. They may not be the best at making a quick buck, but they do have a long-term trajectory to success. Props to you for choosing this option!
The keyword-rich domain
If you picked this type of domain, you may want to watch this short video as Matt Cutts talks about how Google is changing the algorithm.
Short summary: A lot of noise and competition exists among keyword-rich domains. Google is altering the algorithm so websites with keyword-rich domains won’t get as much an advantage over similar websites with less keyword friendly domains.
If you picked a keyword-rich domain, this is my advice for you.
- Check out onlineprofits.com: It’s a successful community that makes online profits.
- Check howtomakemyblog.com: It’s actually an awesome how-to site by Marko Saric.
- Check out onlinecolleges.com and literally every other domain name with some variation of the phrase “online colleges” in it. You’ll begin to see just how competitive things are getting.
- Learn some on-page SEO: It’ll help you immensely against the waves of others like you.
- Get used to being #2: Hey, look at how well Monster does in the shadow of Redbull.
It’s okay, as a few of these examples will show you. With your keyword-rich domain your blog might actually make that six-figure annual income you dreamed about on Day 2.
However, as time passes I can’t help but think keyword-rich domains will become a dime a dozen, and will get sifted out to the bottom of the blogosphere while unique, original concepts rise to the top. It’s a process that may be happening as you read this.
Why did we choose one option or the other?
We’re human. We don’t want the things we do to eventually lead to failure.
We want to succeed, sometimes badly, and will often consider every means necessary to do so. Sometimes this means selecting a domain we at first would have scoffed at.
Albert Bandura was a renowned Canadian psychologist. He examined the characteristics we learn in our adolescence that leads us to success or failure. From the existing Social Learning Theory, it was known four key factors affect how we learn new behavior: drives, cues, responses, and rewards.
What Bandura found, in plain words, was that those of us who are more aggressive often skip a couple steps to get to the “rewards.”
This can be dangerous.
When our aggression outweighs our engrained moral compass, we exhibit “lapses in judgement,” as Bandura called them, where we totally avoid “cues” and “responses.”
It’s these tendencies which lead us to choose a certain domain and make larger, more long-term business decisions. It’s pretty hard to say a domain doesn’t hold vibes and messages that follow our website throughout its entire existence. So next time you’re sitting at GoDaddy about to make a purchase, remember Bandura and think about the long-term implications of your choice.
Bandura became the endowed chair of social psychology at Standford University in 1974 and is believed to be the fourth most cited pyschologist of all time. Go find more of his related work on Wikipedia.
The Blogger is a 25 year old guy from Manhattan who answers 150 blog questions before breakfast and holds a world record for comment response time. Sign up to his email club if you haven’t already (jeez) and find him on the Twitter.
via problogger.net