The United States is a geographically mobile nation with nearly 17 percent of the population moving each year.

It should come as no surprise that the number of complaints filed against moving companies has steadily increased over the past decade. Do your research and learn the questions you should ask a potential mover.

Get recommendations

Ask friends about movers they’ve worked with and whether their experiences were positive.

Once you narrow down your choices, check them out with the Better Business Bureau. If one of the companies has complaints filed against it, take a pass. You also can contact the American Moving and Storage Association (moving.org) to learn if a company is a member, which means it has agreed to abide by the organization’s guidelines. Don’t eliminate a firm just because it doesn’t belong — membership is optional.

Also, check out consumer advocacy sites including movingscam.com and Rip-Off Report (ripoffreport.com), which maintain lists of companies with a history of complaints.

Get several estimates

Ask your top three companies to conduct in-home estimates; do not rely on phone or online estimates.

An estimate is a document that, when signed by you and the moving-company representative, serves as your order for service and bill of lading. These, along with the inventory list created when your goods are loaded, are the basic documents any mover should provide.

Make sure the document is labeled “Written Binding Estimate” and is signed and dated by the mover. For an interstate move, the estimate should describe the type and quantity of goods you’re shipping, distance to your new home, when your things will be picked up and delivered, and additional services and supplies the moving company is providing.

For an in-state move, for which you can’t get a binding estimate, you should still get a written estimate that outlines hourly rates and additional costs you may incur (supplies, tolls, driving time).

Gather information

While the estimator is at your home, get all the details you can about the company. Make sure it will not be contracting the job out to another mover. Ask how long the company has been in business. Also ask for:

• The company’s full name and other names under which it does business.

• The company’s address, phone numbers, email and website addresses.

• Names and contact information for at least three local references.

• U.S. Department of Transportation and Motor Carrier license numbers.

• The booklet “Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move.” Federal law requires interstate movers to provide this booklet to customers. For in-state moves, movers are regulated by the state’s department of transportation or its public utilities or commerce commission; some states publish their own guides.

Compare estimates, dig deeper

When you’ve gathered your estimates, compare them. Beware of extremely low bids; examine high bids to see where extra costs are coming from. Next, take the information you’ve collected and do more research:

• Are the companies incorporated in your state?

• Check with the secretary of state’s office to confirm how long the companies have been in business.

• Do the companies have the licenses and insurances required to move you legally? Search for the companies’ motor carrier license information on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Safer System website.

Watch for red flags

Movers are almost always paid upon delivery. Reputable movers will not demand cash or a large deposit; if you pay up front, you have no control over when — or if — you’ll see your belongings again.

Also be aware that some companies get around the Better Business Bureau and other scam busters by constantly doing business under new names. Be sure the company has a local address and answers the phone with its full business name — not just “movers” or something equally generic.

The importance of hiring a reliable, capable mover cannot be overstated. If you have questions, ask for clarification. Best case, you’ll end up with several competitive bids from reputable companies — then you may be able to negotiate to get an even better rate.

Moving from one residence to another is widely acknowledged as a stress-inducing activity. In fact, “moving” often scores among the top 10 when people are asked to identify stressful life events.

Sure, some household moves go smoothly. Others? Let’s just say if you’ve survived a cross- country move with little more than a chipped tea cup to complain about, you’re in good shape. These folks, on the other hand, have experienced Murphy’s Law-type moves.

Little can add up to big troubles

When Greg and Sally Slack moved from Colorado to Missouri in 2004, they took along two very excited golden retrievers and towed a boat.

The night before they left, one of the dogs jumped up and broke Sally’s nose. The day of the move, a boat trailer tire went flat near the Colorado/Kansas border; fortunately they had a spare. They weren’t as lucky when a second trailer tire blew about 150 miles from the Missouri border, in a fairly desolate portion of Kansas.

“We spent several hours locating a tire dealer and replacing the second tire at twice the price it would have cost us anywhere else,” recalls Sally. “Let me assure you: Sitting on the side of a freeway in blistering heat waiting for that replacement tire was not the picnic some might think.”

Once the couple finally got to Missouri, they unloaded mattresses from their truck and fell asleep at around midnight. At 2 a.m., Greg woke up with chest pains – fearful he was having a heart attack.
The couple called 911 and an ambulance carried the couple to a hospital in a completely unfamiliar city. It took two days for doctors to determine Greg had not had a heart attack; he’d taken too much NoDoz in an attempt to keep himself awake, thus the heart palpitations.

Downhill from there

Moving from one Seattle neighborhood to another sounded simple enough, thought David Tobey. Not so.

Tobey suggested that his professional movers park their truck in front of his apartment for loading. Fearing a ticket, the movers chose instead to park on a steep hill perpendicular to the building.

The truck was half full when Tobey went upstairs to check on things in the apartment.

“Suddenly I heard a terrible noise, like metal being dragged across a street, and saw a large object flying down the hill, followed by assorted debris and people running,” he says. Then he heard the crash.

Tobey ran downstairs to find the truck’s brakes had failed, and it had careened down the hill, demolishing two parked cars (one belonging to a friend who had bussed to work that day) and ramming through the guardrail. It stopped just shy of Interstate 5.

Police and news crews arrived and were able to surmise that the driver did not have a commercial driver’s license and did not use “blocks”  — those big triangular stops that go in front of the tires of large automobiles when parked on a hill. Police were unable to discern whether the driver had used the truck’s hand brake.

After waiting four hours for the truck to be pulled off the guardrail and a new moving truck to come, the old truck was offloaded and the move was completed.

Naturally, some items were lost: broken bed, stereo, glasses and plates. There were no casualties (except for the family’s beloved potted ficus).

The moving company charged Tobey for the full cost of the move (minus the four-hour crash-induced delay). He’s still finding damaged items, so he hasn’t completed the paperwork that company representatives say they need to reimburse him for damage.

Keys to disaster

Kellie Williams’ move from Washington to Oregon went off without a hitch — with one very grand exception.

“After uncrating the pieces of the grand piano, the movers scooped up all of the hardware, presented it to me in outstretched hands and asked, ‘Do you know how this goes together?’” she recalls.

Williams plays the piano but was not exactly versed in its assembly — until that day.

“I ended up studying the parts and putting it back together myself, with the movers hoisting it upright once the legs were attached,” she says. “My piano is pretty special to me, and I wasn’t sure I even wanted them to touch it anymore.”

Don’t go it alone

Caitlin Burke was moving into her first solo apartment in Washington, D.C., and was determined to manage the move on her own. She packed up her belongings and contracted with a moving company she found online.

The truck and its two-man crew showed up pretty much on time and got right to work. The driver handled paperwork while the second man wrapped and moved items; Burke recalls being awed as he single-handedly carried her sofa to the truck.

Within 20 minutes, everything was packed, and Burke was headed to her new place – just two miles away – where she waited. After 45 minutes, she called the movers; there was no answer and no voice mail. Every five minutes or so, she’d call again.

Finally, four hours after leaving her old apartment, the truck pulled up to her building.

The young journalist was about to give the movers a piece of her mind when the passenger-side door of the truck opened and one of the men tumbled out.

“He fell straight to the pavement,” she says. “He had a gash above his eye and was bleeding. His eye was swollen, and he had dried blood on his shirt. This guy had clearly been knocked out.”

Burke called a friend to come to her aid. By the time he arrived, she was in tears. Meanwhile, the driver had left to charge his phone, and the bleeding man was stumbling around the back of her apartment building.

Burke’s pal called police. When officers arrived, the driver explained that the truck had broken down, his partner was hung over, a new mover was on his way and Burke was hysterical because she was afraid she’d be charged for exceeding the two-hour move time for which she’d paid.

Burke called the man a liar and began pointing out holes in his story. That’s when her friend stepped in and encouraged her to hush up if she ever wanted her stuff unloaded.

“The police left thinking I was a crazy woman that was stressed about moving,” she says.
In the end, Burke was charged for a two-hour move and – mostly out of fear – she tipped both the driver and the new mover. She didn’t see the bleeding man again and isn’t sure what really happened to him that day.

“I will say, the biggest lesson I learned was to never be alone with movers. No matter how high my ‘independent woman’ mantra is running, it’s never a good idea to try and pull something like that off by yourself.”

Moving takes its toll: nerves become frayed, children are uprooted from schools and, almost without fail, your favorite furniture is scratched.

It can also take a substantial financial toll.

According to U.S. Census statistics, 19 million American households pack up and move each year. In 2010, Worldwide ERC, the Worldwide Relocation Association, reported the average professional household move cost $12,230.

The dollars and cents that go into those moves vary greatly depending upon a number of factors:

• Distance of the move
• Need for packing supplies and services
• Size/weight of the household being moved
• Use of professional movers vs. rental truck vs. friends with pickups

Weight matters

When it comes to a professionally handled interstate move – one that takes you from one state to another – load weight and distance traveled are the two biggest factors in determining the cost of your relocation.

According to a professional removalists the weight of your items is actually measured on a scale. Before the move, the empty truck is weighed; you may ask to accompany the driver to the scale during the weigh-in to ensure everything is on the up-and-up. Your mover should provide you with an “empty weight” receipt or certificate. The truck will be weighed again once it is loaded with your items.

A reputable removalists will provide a cost estimate prior to your move. The estimate you receive will only be as good as the information you provide. If you have a shed full of bikes and tools that you failed to mention when the movers did their estimate, the estimated weight of your load won’t be accurate. Likewise, estimates given over the phone are not as accurate as those given in person. Companies can “guess” what your load will weigh based on an average 1- or 2- or 3-bedroom home, but if your home is minimally furnished or jam-packed with items, the estimate will be off.

Longer move, higher price tag

To get an idea of moving costs, consider these examples:

The fee for moving an average 1,000-square-foot, 3-bedroom apartment (goods weighing 5,500 pounds) from Chicago to Miami would be approximately $4,400 to $4,900. The same 1,400-mile move for a 2,800-square-foot, 4-bedroom household (20,500 pounds) would likely cost $14,600 to $15,600. Same distance, different loads.

For comparison, consider that moving a 1,000-square-foot, 3-bedroom apartment (5,500 pounds, same as above) 200 miles from Chicago to Indianapolis would cost roughly $3,200 to $3,700. Same load, different distance.

Reputable movers use a rate book published by the Household Goods Carriers Bureau. The book, Tariff 400-M, provides estimates for all long-distance moving transactions based on the weight of your belongings and on the distance they are shipped, plus the amount of packing and other services that you require.

Additional costs

Beyond weight and distance, you may find one or more of these fees applied to your move:

• A transportation surcharge if the moving company pays workers more for working in metropolitan areas, where labor costs are often higher.
• You may opt to purchase full value protection insurance for your belongings. (Released value coverage is provided by movers at no cost, but protection is minimal – just 60 cents per pound per article lost or damaged.)
• Charges for moving heavy items such as automobiles, boats, riding lawnmowers, snowmobiles or pianos.
• Additional charge for specialists brought in to disconnect gas mains or disassemble/assemble pianos and pool tables.
• Additional charge if the movers have to walk more than 75 feet from door to truck or need to use stairs or an elevator.
• Additional charge if your street is too narrow to accommodate the moving truck; movers may need to shuttle your belongings from your home to the truck via a smaller truck.

Be sure to ask your moving company sales representative about these add-on costs. Are there things you can do to avoid or reduce them? Working with the city to reserve parking space right outside your door, for instance, may prevent a surcharge.

Remember that the fees you pay to your movers are only a portion of what your total move will cost you. You also must factor in your personal travel and accommodations, on-the-go meals, the cost of new vehicle registration and driver’s license, utility hook-ups, and carpet and drapery installation.

The housing crash left Florida riddled with real estate issues, but realtors in the Southeast state are growing more confident with new June listings down 3% from last year and pending single-family home sales up 31%, the Florida Realtors said.

In June, the association noted 26,062 new real estate listings, down from 26,868 a year earlier.

Meanwhile, pending home sales rose from 18,098 last June to 23,709 in the most recent report. Closed sales in Florida also grew 5.3% from 17,861 in June 2011 to 18,800 in the latest report.  

The median sales price for detached homes in June increased 8.2% over year earlier levels to $151,000. For attached properties, the median price rose 15.8% to $110,000.

Single-family and townhome inventory levels also plummeted 39.8%, creating more competition for remaining homes on the market. 

“We’re halfway through 2012, and what a year it’s been,” Florida Realtors wrote in a June market report. “Residential real estate has finally taken some meaningful strides toward recovery, and they’ve all been self-powered without divine (or governmental) intervention. Yes, there have been some head fakes in the past, but there’s real reason to believe that market turnaround awaits us.”

Another telltale sign of a strengthening real estate market is the fact that Florida homes are now spending 60 days on the market, down from 78 days a year earlier.

The overall inventory of homes for sale also declined 31.1% from 163,118 homes in June of last year to 112,365 in the latest report.

If you are like millions out there, Facebook has become your no. 1 website on the Web. As you login to it every single day from many devices, be it from your mobile phone, computer, laptop and office workstation, there is a chance that you may leave your Facebook account on without logging out. If your account gets accessed by strangers, it’s going to open up a large can of worms, so you should seriously try to prevent unwanted access to your account.

There are many ways to prevent access to your account by the next person to use the device, the easiest of which is to log out. However if your smartphone or device gets stolen, it’s a whole different matter. In this article, we will go through some important options you can take to prevent others from accessing your personal Facebook account.

Recommended Reading: 10 Ways To Tighten Up Your Gmail Security

1. Create Strong Password

Chances are, you already have your password created for Facebook however it is advisable for you to make sure your Facebook password is one of a kind and different from your other online accounts e.g. email, blog, hosting etc.

To change your password, go to Account Settings > General > Password.

The best passwords would have the combination of small and capital letters, numbers and symbols.

2. Confirm your mobile number

Confirming your mobile number is one of many ways to enhance your account security on Facebook. This way, even when you lose or forget your password, Facebook will be able to send you a new one via SMS.

To add your mobile number, go to Account Settings > Mobile and click on Add a Phone.

Select your country and set the mobile carrier before clicking Next.

Now you will be given an instruction to send an SMS to the given number. Follow the instructions to get a code via SMS, and then enter the code into the column. You also have the option to Share your number with friends on Facebook and Allow friends to text me from Facebook. Select your preferences and click Next.

Now your mobile phone is registered with Facebook, and when the need arises, this connection will be useful to reactivate your Facebook account.

3. Activate Secure browsing, Now

Among other things, to make sure your browsing activity within Facebook is safe, you can turn on the Secure browsing option. By doing this, you automatically limit all external applications that are integrated with Facebook from doing any harm or taking your personal information without your knowledge or approval.

To start securing your account, click on the drop down menu from the top right corner of your Facebook account and go to Account Settings.

Select Security from the left menu.

At the Secure Browsing section, click on the Edit link at the right.

The option panel will appear, ‘check’ the box Browse Facebook on a secure connection then click on the Save Changes button.

4. Activate ‘Login Approvals’

Login approvals is an extended security feature offered by Facebook, and it will require you to enter a security code each time you try to access your Facebook account from unrecognized devices. To activate Login Approvals, go to Account Settings > Security, look for Login Approvals and click on the Edit button.

An option to activate Login Approvals will appear, tick the check box to activate.

A popup window will appear with descriptions of login approvals, click on the Set Up Now button to continue.

If you already register your mobile number, Facebook will automatically send you a code via SMS. Enter this code in the given box and click Submit Code.

Now you have completed with Login Approvals request, click Next to continue.

Next, Facebook will offer you to setup a Code Generator from your mobile phone; this is useful in case you are unable to receive SMS. Click Continue.

Code Generator for Android phones

Since I am using an Android phone, I’ll use the Android activation as an example.

Download the Facebook Mobile App from Google Play if you don’t already have it. After downloading it to your mobile, click Next.

Once downloaded, Facebook will provide instructions to install the Code Generator. To install, launch your Facebook App, tap on menu > Account > Code Generator > Add App. Then click on Finish Setup below.

Now that your Code Generator is active, Facebook will guide you with the correct steps to use the code generator. Next time when you want to generate a new code, simply launch your app, tap on Account > Code Generator and the code will appear. For now, click Close as you have completed the steps to activate your Login Approvals.

5. Disconnect Previous Active Sessions

The good thing about Facebook is that it lets you know about your previous active sessions, where you login from, and what devices you used to access your Facebook account. Now to make sure your account is safe, from the Account Settings > Security page, look for ‘Active Sessions‘ and click on Edit.

Now all previous sessions will be listed, together with the current active session at the top of the list. Click on the link ‘End Activity‘ to kill the activities from other devices.

6. Activate Private Browsing

Another way to prevent another person from accessing your account is by activating the ‘Private Browsing’ option from your browsers. All browsers have this private browsing option, and by activating this option, your activity will not be logged into the browsing history.

Safari

If you are using the Safari Browser on Mac, activate Private Browsing from the menu with Safari > Private Browing.

Firefox

For Firefox, go to Tools > Start Private Browsing.

Chrome

If you are using Chrome, there’s an option to browse using the Incognito window, it’s a version of Chrome window where all browsing activity will not be logged in. To open this window, go to File > New Incognito Window.

7. Don’t ‘Keep Me Logged In’

The moment you want to login to your Facebook account, at the Log In page, there’s a small checkbox that says Keep me logged in. Make sure this box is unchecked. Then, log in as usual. With this on, you will be asked for your email and password every time you launch Facebook.

8. Avoid Spam Links

Facebook is serious about spam and is always enhancing its features to make sure you are safe from being a victim to scams. The types of attacks include money scams through direct or indirect requests via Facebook messages, chat etc, phishing links that will redirect you to fake websites, malicious links that could retrieve your personal information or even harm your computer. There are also chances you may receive emails from ‘Facebook’ but it is actually from a phishing website, this modus operandi is part of a scam.

There are many ways you can avoid being a victim:

1. Never click on suspicious links whenever or wherever you find it, even if it came from your friends. If you receive a link, always take the extra step of asking your friend what the link is to confirm that they had sent it. Usually these links are ‘sent’ without the sender’s knowledge. This includes all links that appear in your Facebook Chat, Messages, friend’s status post or even from your email.

2. Never give out your username or password to anyone, including websites with suspicious links and layouts. Giving your passwords freely could jeopardize the security of your personal information on Facebook.

3. Log in only at www.facebook.com and not from any other link or website, unless you are accessing via Facebook App.

4. Update your browser to its latest version to ensure your browser’s security is up to date so it would detect and alert you with a warning when you are navigating to a suspected phishing site.

9. Sign Out after use

Lastly which is the most important of all (and definitely worth repeating), never forget to log out from your Facebook account.

Conclusion

Now with these 8 options plus one crucial reminder to log out, you can surf your Facebook worry-free. Most of us wouldn’t have thought that our online accounts would get hijacked, but if the recent LinkedIn security breach proves anything, it is that there are people out there on the Web who are actively trying to gain access to our sensitive information. Let’s not make it any easier for them.

Green home image via Shutterstock.

Summer heat can mean soaring energy bills for operating your air conditioner, but there’s a low-cost alternative that often gets overlooked: the whole-house fan.

Whole-house fans offer an installed cost that’s a fraction of central air conditioning, and most installations can be handled by a do-it-yourselfer. Best of all, operating costs can be as little as 10 percent of the cost of operating an air conditioner. A whole-house fan may be all the cooling you need in milder climates, while in hotter areas it can supplement your air conditioning and reduce your energy bills or find a ducted air con specialists to improve the air conditioner.

How they work

The fan is mounted in the attic so that it opens down through the ceiling in a central location, typically a central hallway in a one-story house or above the stairs in two-story homes. The fan is activated once the air temperature outside is cooler than inside. It draws a large volume of air into the house through open windows, pushing the warmer inside air into the attic and then out through the roof and gable end vents.

Article continues below

Advertise with Inman

This results in three different cooling actions. Hot, stale inside air is replaced with cool, fresh air; hot air is flushed out of the attic, lowering the attic temperature and reducing heat that radiates back into the house; and a gentle breeze is created that cools you naturally due to its evaporative effect across your skin.

Also, by removing all that hot air from the attic, you’re helping extend the life of your roofing, you can call a HVAC repair contractors for the maintenance. And, flushing the stale air out of living spaces and replacing it with fresh air helps rid your home of unhealthy concentrations of indoor pollutants. Whole-house fans are also useful on mild winter days for flushing out stale odors.

Shopping for a whole-house fan

You’ll find a wide variety of whole-house fans on the market, but they fall into two broad categories: ducted and nonducted. The nonducted fan is the traditional design, and is the most common. It consists of a large, horizontally mounted, propeller-style fan blade in a square box that’s open on the top and bottom. Depending on the size and design, the box may sit on top of the ceiling joists, or it may sit between them, in contact with the top of the ceiling. Some types require cutting and boxing the joists, while others use a skirt instead.

Smaller nonducted fans are direct-drive, with the fan blade attached directly to the motor. These are the least expensive models, but they have less capacity and are also noisier and tend to have more vibration. More common is the belt-drive design, with the motor to the side of the fan blade and connected to it with a belt and pulley system. This allows for larger-diameter, more steeply pitched fan blades that move more air, in addition to quieter operation and less vibration.

On the ceiling is a large louvered cover. Springs hold the louvers closed, and when the fan is activated, the air flow pulls the louvers open. The louvers make a fairly decent seal against air leakage when closed, but winter covers are available for greater energy efficiency, and are highly recommended. Some styles have retractable energy-efficient covers in the attic that open and close with the fan.

With the ducted style, you have a fan box that sits on top of the joists in the attic. From the box, three or four individual ducts extend to different rooms or zones in the house, and are connected to a louvered vent that’s cut into the ceiling. The exhaust port from the fan box exhausts directly into the attic.

Ducted whole-house fans are typically quieter, because the fan motor is enclosed and more isolated. Since the box sits on top of the joists, there’s no cutting involved in the installation. Also, the ducting allows greater regulation of cooling and ventilation, even with the doors closed. On the downside, these types of units are more expensive to purchase.

Residential whole-house fans are 115 volts, and they draw between 3.5 and 9 amps. Depending on the size and design of the unit, they can be controlled by a simple on/off switch, a two-speed or variable-speed switch, or a 12-hour timer. Consult with the manufacturer’s instructions or a licensed electrician for complete wiring and installation details.

Sizing the fan

Whole-house fans are rated in cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air flow, and need to be sized to the square footage of your home. It’s typically recommended you have a minimum of 2 CFM of air flow per square foot of living space. For faster, more efficient cooling and to feel more of the effects of the evaporative cooling on your skin, you should increase that to 3 CFM per square foot. So, a fan rated at 4,500 CFM would be good for a home of 1,500 to around 2,250 square feet. Larger homes can be served by two fans to provide better air flow and more control over cooling.

The stale air in the attic needs to exit to the outside, so attic ventilation is a very important part of your calculations. Here, the rule of thumb is to divide the capacity of the fan in CFM by 750 to arrive at the total square footage of attic ventilation area needed. For a 4,500 CFM fan, you would need approximately 6 square feet of attic ventilation area.

Whole-house fans are available at many home centers, lumberyards, and plumbing and electrical retailers, in stock or by special order, as well as on the Internet.

Tight supplies of affordable homes and restrictive mortgage underwriting practices are limiting the options for first-time homebuyers, the National Association of Realtors said in reporting a 5.4 percent drop in existing-home sales from May to June.

NAR estimates that single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.37 million in June. That’s up 4.5 percent from the same time a year ago — the 12th straight month that sales have seen year-over-year gains.

“Despite the frictions related to obtaining mortgages, buyer interest remains solid,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, in a statement. “But inventory continues to shrink, and that is limiting buying opportunities. This, in turn, is pushing up home prices in many markets.”

NAR estimated there were 2.39 million existing homes listed for sale at the end of June, a 6.6-month supply at the current sales pace. That’s up slightly from a 6.4-month supply in May, but down from a 9.1-month supply at the same time last year. Many analysts view a six-month supply of housing as an even balance between buyer and seller demand.

First-time buyers accounted for 32 percent of purchasers in June, down from 34 percent in May. Yun said a healthy market share of first-time buyers would be about 40 percent, “so these figures show that tight inventory in the lower price ranges, along with unnecessarily tight credit standards, are holding back entry level activity.”

The national median existing-home price jumped 7.9 percent on an annual basis in June, to $189,400 — the fourth straight month to see year-over-year price increases and the largest year-over-year gain for any month since May 2006, according to NAR.

Article continues below

Advertise with Inman

Distressed homes sold for 18 percent below market value, on average, and accounted for 25 percent of June’s sales.

Yun said he expects the distressed portion of the market to diminish because the number of seriously delinquent mortgages has been falling. All-cash deals accounted for 29 percent of June’s sales — about the same as May unchanged from a year ago.

At a glance: Existing-home sales (May 2012):

Seasonally adjusted annual rate	4.37 million
% change from June 2011	+4.5%
% change from May 2012	-5.4%
National median price	$189,400
% change from May 2011	+7.9%
Unsold inventory (months’ supply)	6.6
Share of all-cash buyers	29%
Share of investor buyers	19%
Share of first-time buyers	32%
Share of distressed sales	25%

Source: National Association of Realtors.

All U.S. regions saw existing-home sales dip in June from a year ago with the Northeast leading the way with a 11.5 percent year-over-year drop to 540,000. The median price in the Northeast also dropped in June, down 1.8 percent to $253,700 — the only region in June to see a year-over-year price drop.

In the West, where sales dropped 3.6 percent on an annual basis, median prices jumped 13.3 percent from last June to $233,300, the largest yearly proportional price jump of any region. “Given tight supply in both the low and middle price ranges in this region, sales in the West are stronger in the higher price ranges,” the report noted.

The annual pace of sales slipped in the Midwest and South, while median prices rose on a yearly basis in the regions. Sales in the Midwest, however, are still up 14.6 percent from last June. Sales in the South are up 5.5 percent from last June.

Re: ‘Can I trust my home inspector?‘ (July 17)

Dear Editor:

Inspectors, Realtors, plumbers, even your baby sister — all have licenses and credentials. These pieces of paper cover only the most basic standards. How well any service provider functions, or the quality of the results, cannot really be legislated.

People and businesses usually have no idea what they do not know. If you don’t get a detailed intro and specific description of the services provided by a business and its qualifications, consider yourself informed to the lack of such services.

Article continues below

Advertise with Inman

The “good guys” know why they are better. Our world, and the real estate industry, pushes “time is of the essence.” Quality seems to be optional.

Many people get preapproved for financing prior to writing an offer to purchase real estate. Most don’t search out an inspector until after they have a contract.

Check with your Realtor from the first showing. Do they have a good inspector? Do they want you to be responsible for finding one? If you know someone, ask your agent what they know about that company or person before deadlines loom.

I have a quality inspection team I recommend. They are so busy, I have to write in a 10-day inspection period to be able to book them. It is worth the wait to get good information. It also makes the wait for closing a relief for all parties instead of a worry.

Earlier today Darren talked about content marketing as a traffic generation strategy, and he mentioned the content marketing we did for the launch of Blog Wise.

The table he showed in that post, which breaks down the different sites we guest posted at, and the key messages we presented, points to an important fact about content marketing: planning really counts.

Where you’re used to writing for your own blog and readership, when it comes to writing for someone else’s (as in guest posting), planning is critical if you’re to make the most of that opportunity.

But even if you’re simply trying to use an email series or whitepaper to convert more of your site’s current, lurking readers into subscribers, you’ll want to plan the content to meet your needs, and those of the audience you’re targeting with it.

So I wanted to follow up Darren’s post with an explanation of how you can create a content outline that does both those things.

What is an outline?

An outline is not a headline. It’s not a rough explanation of what your post will cover (although this is what I’m usually sent as pitches for guest posts at ProBlogger).

An outline is a clear roadmap for the content that shows how that content will meet the needs of your blog business, and those of the target readers or users of that content.

Why write an outline? Because once you have that, you won’t have to worry about these strategic issues when it comes to creating the content. Instead of writing, freeform, until you’re done and then hoping that the content does what you want it to, this process lets you sit down and think strategically about what you’re doing, then sit down again, separately and in a different headspace, to write productively to meet that strategy.

Also, if you’re offering the content through some offsite location—say, as a guest post on someone else’s blog—once you have a good outline, it’ll be easy to chip off the relevant bits to send to the host blogger so that they can see that your content will meet the needs of their readers.

Creating your outline

Ready? Let’s get to it. First, we’re thinking strategically. So stop thinking like a writer, and start thinking like a marketer.

For the purposes of this exercise, I’m going to look at the guest post I wrote for Goinswriter to promote Blog Wise, and show you how that developed.

Look at your needs

What do you need the content you’re using as a marketing tool to do?

With Blog Wise, we wanted our guest posts to:

• promote the ebook
• encourage clickthroughs to the sales page.

Pretty basic, right? Right.

Look at your audience’s needs

What does your audience need the content to do?

To answer this, you need to get to know your audience. In our case, that was pretty easy—we could look at Jeff’s blog and comments, and his social media interactions on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, and get a feel for what his readers felt, needed, and wanted.

If you’re creating content—say a whitepaper—that you’ll distribute through someone else’s site, you’ll need to do similar research. Don’t hesitate to ask the site owner for information on their audience, though, as this can be a great help to you.

What did I feel Jeff’s audience needed the content to do? Here were my thoughts:

• inspire their passion
• help them write, whether they were bloggers, fiction writers, copywriters, or whatever
• provide them with something candid and new.

Meet those needs with a concept

By “concept” I mean an idea that you want to communicate. I wanted to talk about Blog Wise in a way that:

• inspired Jeff’s readers’ passion: so I decided to use Jeff himself (and the interview he did with us for Blog Wise) as the hook
• helped them write: so I thought about a technique that helped me as a writer, regardless of what I’m writing
• provided them with something new: the technique I thought about—having a “writer’s mindset”—wasn’t something I’d heard talked about before. I gave it a catchy name, “constant writing,” to give the article more obvious value, a title hook, and some serious punch.

Using this information, I decided I’d write a guest post that showed readers how to become constant writers. This met my needs and those of my readers—easily checked against the bullet points I made above.

Aspects of “concept” you might want to consider here include:

• catchwords or phrases
• content format
• hooks and angles
• titles.

Extend that concept into a content plan

Obviously your content plan will depend entirely on your concept and the format you’re using. A guest post outline is not an ebook outline, nor is it an email series outline, a video plan, or an infographic storyboard.

But whatever your format, your outline needs to be based around the key messages that communicates your concept to your audience. So you need to develop it with your target readers in mind.

By now, the needs you’re trying to meet should be ingrained and inherent in your thinking, so you can focus entirely on the readers and creating content that meets their needs.

Write down the key points you want to communicate to them, as sentences, subheadings, questions—whatever feels right. For my guest post, those key points were:

• Jeff’s philosophy: just get started
• Problem: how do you “just get started”?
• Identify technique: pro writers are constant writers
• What is constant writing? (explain the concept)
• How does it work? (explain how it works in practice)
• Conclusion.

That’s a good start, but it’s not really detailed enough for me to write the article yet, particularly in those latter sections. So I built it out.

1. Intro
   • Explain Jeff’s philosophy: just get started.
   • Mention interview, and expand on what Jeff said.
   • Detail the problem: how do you “just get started”?.
   • Identify technique: pro writers are constant writers.
2. What is constant writing? (explain the concept)
   • Mention writing “addiction” and the importance of loving expression.
   • Explain what constant writing isn’t: writing, completion, skills, becoming a “serious” writer or taking writing “seriously”.
   • Explain the point of constant writing: playing with words.
3. How does it work? (explain how it works in practice)
   • Pay attention to your expression (with examples: email, text, etc.).
   • Read (examples: signs, t-shirts, books and magazines).
   • Listen (conversations, announcements, songs).
4. Conclusion: Show readers how they’ll change if they put this philosophy into practice, to become constant, addicted, writers.

Houston, we have an outline

Yes! We have an outline! As you can see, some of those bullet points from my concept have become section subheads. Where I’ve needed to clarify my own thinking, I’ve expanded on those points.

Now I can objectively sit back, read this outline, and make sure that I honestly feel it will meet Jeff’s readers’ needs, as I listed them at the outset.

Next? The pitch.

Pitching your content

I could have sent Jeff this outline, but I expected he probably didn’t need to see the inner machinations of my mind. Instead, I summed it up in an email…

“I wanted to ask if we’d be able to write a guest post for your blog to help promote your inclusion in the ebook. The post I had in mind would take your “just get started” philosophy of productivity and present one idea for making that happen. The idea is creative practice, rather than creative production. So, rather than sitting down to write an article, this post argues, sit down to play with words and ideas.

“Write without a goal; write to experiment; write to get practice working with words—this would be the thrust of this article, which provides practical tips for getting started, and argues that an experimental approach takes the pressure off, allowing the writer the freedom to sit down and write a five-line lyric if they want, or 500 words of prose. The post would advocate this as a good way not just to build the creative muscle, but also, to give yourself the potential to discover new aspects of your writing which could be useful, or easily translate, into better, more resonant professional writing/blogging.

“I expect this piece would come in at around 1000 words, and it would of course include a link back to the productivity ebook on ProBlogger. Let me know if you’d be interested in this post for your blog, because I’m really keen to write it and see how your audience feels about the idea 🙂 Of course, if you don’t feel it’s appropriate, that’s no problem at all.”

As you can see, this summation is a digestible, sensitive version of the nuts-and-bolts outline. I’m trying to tell Jeff what I’ll communicate and why it’s of benefit to his readers, rather than give him a laundry list of subheadings. That said, sometimes, a laundy list of subheadings is a great thing to send through, especially with posts that seem nebulous or unusual. I guess the most important thing to note here is that I didn’t write to Jeff and say something like this:

“I have an idea for a guest post on your site about writing productivity. The article is “Constant Writing: the productivity secret of pro writers”. Do you think it would be of interest?”

This is no way to either build rapport with the person who’s hosting your marketing effort, or inform them of the value of your piece. The outline I sent Jeff explains specifically:

• what his readers will get out of the content,
• through what discussions, and
• how the content will benefit the host blogger himself.

If your content marketing pitch does this, you’re on a winner. From here, it’s likely you’ll be able to navigate any hurdles the host blogger throws up and, when it comes to write your piece, you’ll basically know on a subconscious level what you’re doing and why—which will show clearly in your writing.

Do you plan your content marketing efforts?

if you think having an outline like this would be handy in giving your guest posts the greatest impact, imagine what it can do for your email subscription series, your free ebook, or your whitepaper.

Outlines make content marketing easier. Do you use them? Will you try? I’d love to hear what you think in the comments.