Daily Archives: April 12, 2013

Top 10 Reasons Why You Need a Content Marketing Strategy | Katonah NY Real Estate

1. Trust in Advertising is Terrible

A recent report from market research giant Nielsen shows consumer trust in traditional media advertising has plummeted. Users don’t like, nor trust the sales messages 

The survey found whopping 90% of OECD consumers said they trusted brand recommendations from friends or users they trusted online, while only 10% said they trusted messages from display advertising.

Content Marketing represents a form of word-of-mouth marketing, whereby users consumer, engage and share your useful brand content. A strong content marketing strategy hits closer to the 90% trust level than any paid banner ad at the other end of the consumer trust scale.

2. Content Marketing Delivers Quality Lead Generation 

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half,” said John Wanamaker. This problem may be solved with content marketing.

In fact, Content marketing can convert 30% more organic traffic into high quality sales leads (source: MarketingSherpa). Great content marketing will attract potentially high value customers, and these customers will come back for more.

This compares to more traditional advertising methods, where media planners will buy an audience assuming that an ad message will be received by a target audience, and this also assumes the paid message will compel users to act.

Content Marketing delivers on the strategy of ‘narrowcasting’ where brands focus on a smaller, core group of potential, high quality consumers.

Federal budget projects $943 million bailout for FHA | Bedford Hills NY Homes

The Federal Housing Administration will likely need a $943 million taxpayer bailout in the next fiscal year to cover losses stemming from defaults on loans made both during and after the housing boom, according to a 2014 budget proposal released by the Obama administration today.

If required, the bailout would be the first in the federal agency’s 79-year history. The FHA has been hard-hit by defaults from housing bubble-era loans made from 2005 through 2008, with future losses estimated at $70 billion for loans made in 2007, 2008 and 2009 alone.

The agency has until Sept. 30 to decide whether it will need a cash subsidy from the U.S. Treasury. FHA Commissioner Carol Galante said the agency still might be able to avoid taking the bailout, Reuters reported.

“FHA, while still under stress from legacy loans, has made significant progress and is on a sound fiscal path forward,” Galante said.

In its last annual report, released in November, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), of which FHA is a part, reported a $16.3 billion deficit for the agency, raising the specter of a taxpayer bailout. Since then, the agency has taken several steps to bolster its capital reserves, including tightening underwriting standards, raising insurance premiums, and shuttering FHA’s standard reverse mortgage program.

In testifying today before the U.S. House Financial Services Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity, National Association of Realtors President Gary Thomas applauded the FHA for taking steps to improve its financial stability.

Mortgage rates fall again after weak jobs report | Bedford NY Real Estate

Mortgage rates dipped for the second consecutive week following a disappointing jobs report.

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.43 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending April 11, down from 3.54 percent last week and 3.88 percent a year ago, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Rates on 30-year fixed-rate loans hit a low in Freddie Mac records dating to 1971 of 3.31 percent during the week ending Nov. 21, 2012.

For 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, rates averaged 2.65 percent with an average 0.7 point, down from 2.74 percent last week and 3.11 percent a year ago. Rates on 15-year fixed-rate loans hit a low in Freddie Mac records dating to 1991 of 2.63 percent during the week ending Nov. 21, 2012.

For five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid-rate mortgage (ARM) loans, rates averaged 2.62 percent with an average 0.5 point, down from 2.65 percent last week and 2.85 percent a year earlier. Rates on five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid-rate mortgage (ARM) loans hit an all-time low in records dating to 2005 of 2.61 percent during the week ending March 21.

Rates on one-year Treasury-indexed ARM loans averaged 2.62 percent with an average 0.3 point, down from 2.63 percent last week and 2.8 percent a year ago. Rates on one-year ARM loans hit a low in records dating to 1984 of 2.52 percent during the week ending Dec. 20, 2012.

Looking back a week, a separate survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed applications for purchase loans down a seasonally adjusted 1 percent during the week ending April 5 from the week before. Purchase applications were up 4 percent from a year ago.

Will rising mortgage rates undermine home prices? | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate

Thanks to freakishly low interest rates, many homeowners with mortgages are able to make their monthly house payments using a much smaller percentage of their income than has been the historical norm, an analysis by Zillow shows.

But home prices are actually more expensive relative to median annual incomes than they were during the pre-boom years, which raises a troubling question: What happens when the economy improves and interest rates go up?

Because housing affordability is more highly dependent on interest rates than it has been in the past, when rates go up, home values will either have to remain stagnant while incomes catch up, or home values may even have to fall in some markets, said Stan Humphries, Zillow’s chief economist.

Some homebuyers could find themselves newly underwater if rising mortgage interest rates depress home values in their markets.

“Those buyers purchasing with little money down and high initial mortgage balances will be more at risk for slipping underwater if home prices fall marginally,” Humphries said. “Many homebuyers financing their purchase with a mortgage backed by the Federal Housing Administration can put down as little as 3.5 percent of the home price in down payment, and these buyers could be more susceptible to falling into negative equity even with modest home value declines.”

U.S. homeowners in the fourth quarter of 2012 devoted 12.6 percent of their median monthly incomes to mortgage payments, according to Zillow. That’s close to 37 percent more than homeowners paid from 1985 to 1999, Zillow says, when mortgages took up 19.9 percent of a typical homeowners’ median monthly income.

Foreclosure timelines reach record lengths | Bedford Corners NY Homes

Foreclosure timelines are growing more bloated, largely due to sustained government intervention in the housing market, according to RealtyTrac’s March U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. At the same time, foreclosure activity continues to subside, drifting closer to pre-meltdown levels, RealtyTrac reported. 

“Although the overall national foreclosure trend continues to head lower, late-blooming foreclosures are bolting higher in some local markets where aggressive foreclosure prevention efforts in previous years are wearing off,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “Meanwhile, more recent foreclosure prevention efforts in other states have drastically increased the average time to foreclose, which could result in a similar outbreak of delayed foreclosures down the road in those states.”

Drunk people: best focus group ever? | Chappaqua NY Real Estate

If you’re an app developer, you may want to stop wasting your time with focus groups and get wasted in a bar instead. 

Dave Lieb, the founder of file-sharing app Bump, recently told Fast Company that one of the most effective testing methods the company used to hone its product was to introduce it to drunk people in bars. Lieb argues that in a society that breeds distraction and multitasking, there’s no better demographic to test a product on than those who are mentally impaired. 

“Drunk people are maybe a good approximation of distracted people,” Lieb told Fast Company.

By inviting revelers to use Bump, Lieb and his team gained valuable insights into how to make Bump, which enables users to transfer data by bumping their phones, more user-friendly and attractive. For example, Lieb realized that having the app require users to be on certain pages on their phones to transfer information made it too challenging to use for intoxicated people. As a result, the company made all pages “bumpable.” 

The company also learned that brand awareness doesn’t necessarily translate into usage when a bachelorette party cheered after learning that a Bump employee worked at Bump only to reveal that none of them actually had Bump. After that experience, Bump decided to expand its product to allow users to transfer all manner of data, not just phone contacts.