Daily Archives: January 15, 2013

Home Prices Surge Despite Distress | Pound Ridge Realtor

For nine straight months, national home prices have been in the positive, and the gains are only getting larger. The latest reading for November shows a 7.4 percent jump from a year ago, according to CoreLogic. That includes sale prices of distressed properties, bank-owned homes and short sales. This is the largest year-over-year jump since 2006 when we were at the height of the housing boom.

“As we close out 2012 the pending index suggests prices will remain strong,” wrote Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic in a release. “Given that the recently released Qualified Mortgage rules issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are not expected to significantly restrict credit availability relative to today, the gains made in 2012 will likely be sustained into 2013.”

Some had predicted price gains of between three and five percent in 2013, but these numbers seem to indicate the market could outpace expectations.

While competition among investors for distressed properties drove home price gains in much of 2012, the non-distressed market appears to be catching up. Excluding distressed sales, home prices still saw a healthy 6.7 percent annual gain in November, and analysts at CoreLogic are predicting an even larger 8.4 percent jump in December.

“For the first time in almost six years, most U.S. markets experienced sustained increases in home prices in 2012,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “We still have a long way to go to return to 2005-2006 levels, but all signals currently point to a progressive stabilization of the housing market and the positive trend in home price appreciation to continue into 2013.”

Just six states, Delaware, Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Alabama saw annual price depreciation. New Jersey still has a huge backlog of distressed properties, as does Illinois. Arizona, Nevada and California are seeing big home price gains, as investors there continue to inhale properties to take advantage of the very lucrative rental market. Still, even excluding distressed sales, Nevada saw a 12 percent jump in home prices.

There are, however, still looming headwinds to home prices, as banks ramp up foreclosures especially in states that require these cases to go before a judge. That new inventory could slow price gains in those states. Inventory, or lack thereof, is the primary driver of much of these gains. There were just 2.03 million homes for sale in November, according to the National Association of Realtors, a 23 percent drop from November of 2011 and the lowest supply since September of 2005.

Some are concerned that low inventory and not increased demand is juicing prices faster than is healthy for the housing recovery. If prices start to outpace earnings and employment growth, and then more properties hit the market this Spring, these gains could take a U-turn.

How to Use Instagram & Boost Your Business | Katonah NY Realtor

Facebook has done its best to keep a strangle hold on the landscape of social media with its acquisition of Instagram. And after paying $1 billion for it, you can bet they are going to squeeze pretty hard. Instagram champions the idea that we can communicate through the use of images and, like all social media, can be used to help build a brand and business. But how?!

Image: by Johnnymip

Social media is a useful marketing tool generally with its ability to put a company in close proximity with their target audience. And the best part about it is you don’t actually have to be in any kind of physical proximity to them.

You can respond to your customers all over the globe immediately or guide a conversation to gauge opinion amongst them. You might even feel inclined to upload a picture of Joe from the warehouse. Well, with social media you can.

What’s really great about social media is that you can do all this whilst cowering behind a desk. Or sitting on the toilet!

But what should you do specifically to help your business with Instagram?

Your Shop Window

You should think of any social media profile page like a shop window. What make’s Instagram so good as a marketing tool is that you can do much more decorating. You can showcase your brand with recent images and use colour to create an inviting atmosphere. Remember: Pictures are evocative so try and make sure you have some good ones!

An attractive woman could be wearing your range of clothing? Using Instagram is a lot cheaper than hiring models too!

An attractive woman could be wearing your range of clothing? Using Instagram is a lot cheaper than hiring models too! Image: by Love Meagan

The new profiles on Instagram feature a rotating display of recently shared photographs just above your profile and bio – so make sure you are updating it often.

However, keep looking at your profile and ask: does this best represent my brand? There is no point taking photos of snowboarders if your company sells office supplies or paper gifts!

NB: Don’t just upload pictures of Joe from the warehouse. He’s not really very photogenic.

Follow, Follow, Follow

Instagram is the same as other social media platforms – you need followers. If a tree falls in the woods, does it…

Anyway – you get the idea.

Compelling images drive traffic on Instagram. These are the ones that capture a person’s attention and generate excitement. For instance the music magazine Billboard recently did a ‘Day in the Life’ feature and took photos of One Direction backstage. While we understand you might not have and the world’s biggest boy band at your disposal, I’m sure you can do better than taking a picture of the view from the office.

Image: by PhilCampbell

If your company sells a product, why not get some inspirational shots of people using that product? Just make sure they at least look like they’re enjoying it and don’t forget to share!

Set Up a Honey Trap

You can use Twitter and Facebook to lure people onto your Instagram. Facebook obviously has a vested interest in joining the two, but it is now easier than ever to hook up your Twitter, as Instagram @ mentions now translate to it. What’s more, it doesn’t matter if someone has a different @username on Twitter because Instagram will link the two up either way.

It is important to reward people who follow your Instagram page. Ask individual questions and comment on other peoples photographs – if you want people to invest time in you, then you need to do the same to them.

InstaMeets & Competitions

General Electric (GE) recently ran an Instagram campaign and showed their followers the inner workings of the company, taking people right to the heart of their research labs, factory floors and places where their products could be seen in action. They also challenged their followers to take photos of the company’s four ways of working – Building, Powering, Moving and Curing – and asked them to send in their own images that best described those terms. The person who sent in the best image was then offered the position of the official GE Instagram photographer.

This multi-layered and effective campaign really boosts business.

Let’s take a look at what is actually going on: by showing people compelling images of the business it gets them excited and asking them to contribute makes the campaign interactive. Finally, incentivising the campaign into a competition makes people really want to get involved.

One final thing to remember is that online social marketing can be used to create an offline social event. Don’t get stuck at your computer. InstaMeets get people in a community to come together and hang out – this can boost business if you think of something fun that really relates to your brand. For example to promote their new show Vegas, CBS held an InstaMeet on the film set in Santa Clara, giving people behind the scenes tours and exclusive access to actors.

Perhaps your company can’t offer something quite so wondrous but why not think of something exciting you can offer? Don’t arrange to meet behind a bike shed though!

Have you used Instagram in any weird and wonderful ways to drum up a bit of business? Let us know!

Redefining “Quality Content” … And Writing It | Bedford Hills Real Estate

Sometimes, I think that if I hear the cliche “content is king” one more time, I’ll scream.

…Okay, maybe I already have. Everyone’s talking about content marketing now that Google’s put (more) emphasis on “quality content”, but no one really seems to be talking about what “quality content” actually means.

Is it content that converts? Content that’s shared? Content that ranks well in the search engines? Content that “resonates” with readers? All of the above? Something else entirely?

And: where can we start creating this “quality content”—if, that is, we’re not doing it already…?

Enough with the cliches! What we need are some answers.

Quality content: a new definition

I think quality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Something that has value for me may have no value to you at all. So quality is closely linked to audience, to the idea being communicated, and to the way it’s communicated. But ultimately, I think it’s a pretty subjective description.

As a freelancer, I’m sometimes asked to write content that I’m not exactly excited about. Obviously as bloggers, we would never publish something we’re not proud to put our names to on our own blogs. But if you’re paid to write, sometimes client desires can see you writing copy or content that bores you to tears, or worse: makes you cringe.

Well, if “quality” is subjective, then I think our most basic definition of the term should entail a level of interest that captivates us as human beings. If your writing doesn’t intrigue you, how will it ever intrigue someone else?

So my new year’s resolution for writing is: don’t write what you don’t want to read. (Easier said than done with some clients!) To me, that’s the basis for quality content.

The elements of interest

There’s a lot that goes toward making a post interesting. Topic, writing style, angle, and presentation are just some of the keys to keeping readers reading, and minds cranking over.

Of those, topic and presentation are probably no-brainers for most bloggers and blog posts, most of the time. But if you see blogging like that, you’re probably headed for writer’s block and a blogging rut. If you decide you’ll only ever use text and images, and you won’t look at certain topics in your field because they’re not really “you,” you’re already cutting of your options for creating real, genuine interest among your readers. And, most likely, for yourself.

As for angle and writing style, these are two areas that I think can interact really well—two aspects that can help each other to develop if you let them. How? With the help of the Golden Rule for Better Blogging.

The Golden Rule for Better Blogging

That Golden Rule is: try something you’ve never tried before.

It sounds deceptively simple, but in practice, it can be daunting. Here’s how it might play out for your blog writing:

  • Never written a sales page before? Write one. If you don’t have a product, imagine one of your competitors’ products is yours, or dream up a product you’d like to offer and write a sales page for that.
  • Wish your writing was more sensitive/dynamic/powerful? Study an author or blogger you feel has this talent, work out what they do, then try to apply those techniques in your own writing.
  • Scared to pen an opinion post? All the more reason to draft one. Now.
  • Been putting off making approaches to other bloggers about teaming up on a project? Open up your email and start writing … from the heart.

Better blogging is about pushing the boundaries of what you know you can do. Better blog writing is a variation on that theme. Pushing the boundaries of your blog writing capabilities can be hard when you feel you’re not sure where those boundaries are, or you’re overwhelmed by the amount of advice that’s available to help you overcome that particular challenge.

The answer is to take it one step at a time.

An example: my writing style sandbox

Toward the end of last year, I realized there were certain bloggers and writers whose styles I really admired. At first I wished I wrote more like them, but I soon realised that what I actually wanted was to develop a more engaging writing style of my own.

I studied their techniques, but instead of emulating them, I wanted to use the feeling it gave me as grist to my own creative mill.

So I developed an idea for a blog, wrote a couple of posts, and launched it. The idea is to experiment with personal narrative as a vehicle for deeper connection with readers.

For someone who’s more used to writing other people’s product sales pages and email autoresponders, this is a bit of a shift. It’s outside my comfort zone. It’s beyond the boundaries of what I usually do. And the whole point of it is to experiment with writing techniques—to have a sandbox in which to play.

Your writing style sandbox doesn’t need to be a blog—it doesn’t need to be available to the world, and regularly updated. You could have your sandbox take up an hour every Thursday night, and a new folder on your desktop. Your sandbox could comprise a mutual writing critique session with a trusted friend once a month. It could be whatever you want.

No aim, no gain

The objective of this post is, first, to get you thinking about how you define “quality content” and second, to encourage you to set a goal to reach for better quality content every time you put fingers to keyboard (or pen to paper).

The important step is for you to look at writing that you believe reflects the qualities your own content lacks, and from there, to set a goal to work on those elements in whatever way suits you.

Without an objective, you’ll find it hard to improve. While we could look to our traffic analytics, shares, and so on for “proof” that our writing “quality” is improving, since the measure of quality is to write something you want to read, the best measure of your “success” will probably be a feeling rather than a figure.

What does “quality content” mean to you? And what are you doing to move toward it? I’m interested to hear your thoughts.

Citibank recruiting mortgage loan originators | Bedford Corners Realtor

1/14/13 3:15pm

Citibank ($42.22 0%) is looking to expand its retail group partnership channel, which includes alliances with other companies and real estate agencies.

The company is looking for sales managers and loan originators.

Citibank is searching for staff in the states of Texas, Louisiana, Montana, Iowa, Indiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kansas, Wisconsin, Alabama, Minnesota, Kentucky, Michigan and Illinois.

At this time, Citibank does not know exactly how many independent loan brokers it will be hiring.

Judicial foreclosures jump in December | Chappaqua Real Estate

foreclosure.jpg Judicial foreclosures jumped in December, according to Eugene-based Gorilla Capital. The Associated Press

Court-supervised foreclosures — the alternative to the out-of-court system lenders have favored for decades — jumped in December, a reseller of foreclosed homes reported.

Lenders filed 681 judicial foreclosures in 24 Oregon counties where Gorilla Capital operates. The Eugene company buys, redevelops and sells foreclosed homes.

November saw 446 judicial foreclosures, a decline from 522 in October.

The number of judicial foreclosures has climbed over the past year as regulation and legal trouble for lenders complicated the nonjudicial foreclosure process. Nonjudicial foreclosure activity dropped to almost nothing in July, when a court ruling and a new state foreclosure mediation program simultaneously changed legal requirements to foreclose outside the court system.

Still, judicial foreclosure activity trails the nonjudicial foreclosure activity seen a year ago.

The Oregon Supreme Court and the Oregon Legislature may both make decisions in coming months that could shift foreclosures back to the nonjudicial process, which banks prefer because it is speedier and cheaper.