Daily Archives: November 2, 2012

3 Reasons Your Social Strategy is Failing (And What to Do Instead) | South Salem Real Estate

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“Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers”, according to Forrester’s latest research report.

They analyzed primary sales drivers for eCommerce, and concluded that less than 1% of buyers were from social visitors.

There’s a few possible explanations for this.

The first (and most important) is that social aids the buying process indirectly, and is difficult to track — which leads companies (and research firms) to under-appreciate and under-invest.

The second, is that most corporate social media strategies… simply aren’t that good. And their results are mediocre because they’re too tactical, and too focused on micro-decisions.

Here are 3 reasons why your social strategy is failing, and what to do instead.

Fix

So every single status update should bear all the hallmarks of good content.

Research and dig into your prospect’s psychology, use copywriting to intrigue and address their pain points, and monitor your analytics to do more of what people like, and less of what they don’t.

Every status update should be like it’s own advertisement:

  • Objective: At the end of the day, you need engagement or click-throughs. But emphasis one at a time, not both. Because if you want to maximize results, then you typically have to make a choice that will hurt the other option.
  • Headline:The first goal of your headline is to grab attention. The best way is to touch an emotional nerve, or reference a specific “world-view” they might have.
  • Description: The description is where you use copywriting to play on reader’s interests and psychology, and get them to take action.
  • Image: Finally, the goal of your image is to produce a desired result. So it doesn’t have to be explicitly tied to what you’re talking about. Instead, make it sure captures attention and will make an emotional connection.

Here’s an example of all those components coming together:

Becoming a social media publisher allows you to set the tone for engagement, and steer the conversation in ways that ultimately benefit you.

Fix #3: Create Campaigns, Not Launches

Whenever a company has a new launch, promotion, or sale coming up, they want to start “marketing” on the opening day.

But by then, you’ve already lost.

Effectively promoting events or launches takes time, and can’t happen overnight.

“If you want to succeed in social media, then think in quarters, not days.” → [Click here to share this quote]

So tying in to use social channels to distribute those messages farther, faster, and more effectively.

via socialmediatoday.com

Qualifying for a mortgage after an employment gap | Katonah Real Estate

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Q: My husband is quitting his job to stay home w/our three small children (we have twins!). But in two years, we would like to move and have his new job’s salary considered when we apply for a loan. I heard he has to be working for at least six months for his income to be considered. Is that correct?

A: You and your stay-at-home-dad-to-be hubby exemplify the flexible family roles of a modern American family. Kudos to you both for thinking ahead and being strategic about the road ahead. Let’s get right to your questions:

1. Six months should work. Based on current guidelines, which are subject to change, most lenders require that a gap of employment longer than three months be followed up by at least six months of employment before the income of the borrower with the employment gap can be considered toward qualifying for the home loan.

Lenders will still require your last two years of income tax returns, but will generally look to your average monthly income from the last few months so long as they are provided with verification that your husband’s been back to work for at least 180 days.

2. There are caveats. The six-month greenlight assumes that your husband goes back to work in the same field as he worked in before he took time off to stay home with the kids. Most lenders have a two-year “same line of work” requirement; the employment gap doesn’t disqualify his income from counting, so long as he’s been in the same line of work for at least two years.

If your husband is looking to change lines of work, he will need to prove that he’s been in the field for two years before they will count his income. Time spent enrolled in an educational course does count toward the two-year “same line of work” requirement.

So, for example, if he was a firefighter, then went to law school during his employment gap, then went back to work as an attorney for six months, the time spent in law school would count toward the required two years in the legal field, and the six months of lawyer work would allow his income to count toward your qualifications.

If, on the other hand, he was a firefighter, took two years off, then went to work in human resources, he would probably need to work for two years in the HR field before his income would count toward your loan qualifications.

3. And a few more caveats. Assuming he’s going back to work in the same line of work as he was in before, the lender will likely use only his base salary to count toward your loan qualifications. Commissions, overtime, bonuses and other employment compensation beyond the base salary cannot be counted toward your ability to repay your mortgage without a two-year paper trail documenting the extra income. Similarly, if he goes back to work in his own business, he might be required to document his self-employment income via two years of adjusted gross income as shown on federal tax returns, for that income to be counted toward your loan qualifications.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of “The Savvy Woman’s Homebuying Handbook” and “Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions.” Tara is also the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com. Ask her a real estate question online or visit her website, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

via inman.com

Are security deposit deductions worth going to court over? | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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Q: I vacated my rental house after living there for five years. I had paid a $650 deposit when I moved in. Per the landlord-tenant act in my state, the landlord is required to provide a detailed itemized statement or accounting and a refund of any remaining balance of my security deposit.

On the 14th day after I moved out, the property manager wrote a letter to me stating that he and the landlord were still waiting on final bills for cleaning and other items. So I believe that this letter was not sufficient.

Today, I received the “final accounting” for my rental house. I had spoken to the property manager prior to vacating the premises and we agreed verbally that when I moved I would not be cleaning the carpet. Also, since I was leaving the state I did leave a desk in the house and a few items outside the house.

In the “itemized statement” there were several charges levied against my deposit. One was $235.21 for “garbage removal.” I know from personal experience that a dump run in that area costs $20 for up to 400 pounds, so I question the charge for “garbage removal.”

Another charge is $215 for “tenant portion of interior painting,” which seems like complete repainting. The one-bedroom, one-bath house was only 496 square feet with a tiny kitchen and two closets.

Also, this itemized statement did not provide any copies of receipts, so it is as if the landlord expects me to take his word for all of this. I have always been under the impression that if a tenant occupies the unit for more than one year, the painting is considered normal wear and tear. I am in shock that the landlord is trying to charge me for painting at all, let alone so much.

I think the landlord violated the state law. I have the right to take this to small claims court, and the landlord may be ordered to refund my full deposit or even pay me double my refund amount. All I really want is what is rightfully mine. The way I see it, the landlord owes me about $450 of my $650 deposit.

Can you confirm my reasoning so I can determine if it is worth taking this to small claims court?

A: I am not an attorney but it is my opinion that sending you a letter on the 14th day meets the intent of the law. The fact that you apparently left the property in poor condition such that the landlord could not get the work done and the bills finalized within 14 days does not mean the landlord has breached the legal requirement. Many times it is not possible to have the final invoices and accounting within a short time frame like 14 days.

I advise owners and property managers to do exactly what they did, which is send a letter explaining the circumstances and then follow up as soon as they can with the actual amounts. I cannot predict what a small claims court will do in your case, but I have seen such courts side with landlords in this exact situation.

I do think your request to see copies of the receipts for painting and the trash removal is certainly reasonable. But I don’t believe the issue is what you think the costs should be as much as what they actually paid and that the amounts paid were reasonable. Landlords and property managers are not required to do the turnover of rental units personally or for the cheapest possible cost using day laborers. They can hire professional companies that have employees and offer those employees reasonable market-level wages and benefits.

So the fact that you know that the local dump will take 400 pounds of trash for $20 is not relevant other than for that portion of any charges passed on to you should be the actual cost incurred by the landlord. You seem to be overlooking what is likely the largest portion of the $235.21 charge and that is the labor to clean up and the transportation costs to haul away and dump the items and/or trash you left behind. You acknowledge that you left a desk and some items outside the house, and the landlord has to remove those items.

If you wanted to make sure that the charges were extremely low, then you should have done the work yourself or personally hired someone to do the work so you can control the costs.

The charge for the painting at $215 also seems quite reasonable based on my 30-plus years of experience. There is no law that specifically states that a tenancy of more than one year exempts a tenant from charges for painting. So the landlord can charge for the reasonable costs beyond ordinary wear and tear.

You don’t provide details about the condition you left the rental unit paint in, but it doesn’t take a lot of damage to incur $215 in costs for labor and materials to patch and paint a one-bedroom unit.

While your rental unit may have only been less than 500 square feet, it is difficult to find a painting contractor to come out and do much for just over $200. Think about the costs of a painting contractor these days and most have minimum charges. So ask for a copy of the receipt, but know that the charge seems quite fair, as the complete prepping and patching and repainting and cleanup for a 500-square-foot rental property could be $400-$500 in many areas. I would expect that you will find the landlord paid more than the $215. And, as the landlord’s comment in the final accounting suggests, you were just charged for a portion of the costs, which would be reasonable since you did live there for five years.

You don’t mention that there were any other charges against your security deposit but acknowledge that you told the landlord that you were leaving with the carpet dirty. So any reasonable charges for the carpet cleaning would seem to be legitimate as well.

You absolutely have the right to challenge their deductions in small claims court, but I would suggest the first step you take is to simply ask for copies of the receipts. Then you need to seriously ask yourself if the court will find in your favor in an amount that will cover the costs of filing and serving a small claims court action, including the costs and time to travel back to the state where the rental unit is located to pursue your claim.

Remember that the courts will not award you your costs for travel and time off work, and you will be limited to the amount of the deductions from your security deposit as the maximum you could possibly receive.

Even if a court completely agreed with you (small claims courts rarely side 100 percent for tenants or landlords in disputes over security deposits, in my experience), you will not recoup all of your out-of-pocket costs and time.

In the future, I suggest you ask for a walk-through with your landlord in person prior to vacating. You should ask the landlord to estimate for you the charges that he expects to incur based on his experience. This is approximately what you will see deducted from your security deposit except for any latent or hidden damage that the landlord cannot detect until your furnishings and possessions are removed from the property. Then you can decide what work or items you would like to handle personally. Then be sure to take pictures or have witnesses or copies of invoices that will verify the condition you left the rental unit in at the time you vacated.

via inman.com

No signs of pressure on home loan rates | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Mortgage rates stayed in the basement this week, as mortgage-backed securities that fund the vast majority of home loans continued to look like a safe bet to investors.

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.39 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending Nov. 1, down from 3.41 percent last week and 4.00 percent a year ago, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Rates for 30-year fixed-rate loans hit an all-time low in Freddie Mac records dating to 1971 of 3.36 percent during the week ending Oct. 4.

For 15-year fixed-rate loans, rates averaged 2.70 percent with an average 0.7 point, down from 2.72 percent last week and 3.31 percent a year ago. Rates for 15-year fixed-rate loans reached an all-time low in Freddie Mac records dating to 1991 of 2.66 percent during the week ending Oct. 18.

Rates on 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) loans averaged 2.74 percent with an average 0.6 point, down from 2.75 percent last week and 2.96 percent a year ago. Rates on five-year ARM loans hit a low in records dating to 2005 of 2.69 percent during the week ending July 19.

For 1-year Treasury-indexed ARMs, rates averaged 2.58 percent with an average 0.4 point, down from 2.59 percent last week and 2.88 percent a year ago. Rates on one-year ARM loans hit an all-time low in records dating to 1984 of 2.57 percent during the week ending Oct. 4.

A weekly survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed demand for purchase mortgages was up a seasonally adjusted 1 percent during the week ending Oct. 26 when compared to the week before, and up 6 percent from the same week a year ago.

Members of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee said last week they expect to keep their target for short-term interest rates at “exceptionally low levels” at least through mid-2015.

The Fed is also keeping mortgage rates low, by boosting purchases of mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by $40 billion a month. Economists at Fannie Mae think the open-ended program may continue through next year and into 2014.

via inman.com

The Real Estate Book updates marketing products website | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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Real estate marketing platform The Real Estate Book has updated its online marketing tool, trebstore.com, to allow agents and brokers to target the brochures, postcards and flyers they create on the site to their contacts’ demographic characteristics and locations.

The three-year-old marketing hub, powered by communications company R.R. Donnelley and Sons Inc., allows users to access their listing photos and data from RealEstateBook.com, which has 1.5 million listings in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, and create marketing materials from them.

The service then charges users to have them printed and delivered or to download the digital file. Costs range from $0.61 per 6-by-9-inch mailed postcard to $2.05 per 11-by-17-inch mailed brochure. Users can download and print the pieces themselves at a subscription rate starting at $0.99 per download.

The service’s new targeting capabilities make it easy for real estate pros to maximize their marketing efforts, said Scott Dixon, CEO of NewPoint Media Group, parent company of The Real Estate Book.

Advertisers “can choose a specific area down to the subdivision level and then filter their list by household income, the amount of time the consumer has owned the home, for example,” Dixon said in a statement.

Sample design template on The Real Estate Book’s trebstore.com.

Trebstore.com also offers a broker product that allows brokers to create consistent branding for all of the pieces their agents send out using the site.

Last year, The Real Estate Book updated its website to make it mobile-optimized and released an iPhone app.

via inman.com

Listingbook now managing leads for brokers | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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Listingbook LLC announced the release today of its Broker Lead Incubation Service (BLIS), a tool for brokers that manages their “cold” leads, cultivates them and then hands them over when they’re close to being transaction-ready.

The system, a slow-drip, outsourced marketing tool, is built to convert leads, even old ones, into hot prospects, according to Listingbook.

BLIS, Listingbook’s first service developed for brokers, works by a broker first providing leads to Listingbook, which creates a broker-branded version of its client-management system. Then Listingbook emails leads to sign up with the system, giving them access to the multiple listing service-sourced, broker-branded home search powered by Listingbook.

Screen shot of broker-branded Listingbook home search.

Listingbook then sends daily morning reports to the “cold” leads in a broker’s BLIS system and its staff answers their preliminary questions. When a prospect is ready to act, the broker is contacted and can choose which agent to handle it.

“Ask any broker what their biggest challenge is with online buyers and sellers and they’ll likely say, ‘We waste a ton of money on advertising to generate leads, of which 98 percent aren’t even close to entering a transaction anytime soon,'” said Randall Kaplan, CEO of Listingbook, in a statement. BLIS was built to address this challenge, he said.

Screen shot of the BLIS-powered lead cultivation system in action.

“Listingbook’s (BLIS) is great because it is like having an extra employee or two working for us, following up with Internet buyers and sellers,” said Laura Paperner, director of e-commerce for Prudential Alliance Realtors, which beta-tested the service.

“The Listingbook technology automatically updates prospects with information on homes for sale, price changes and open houses — and when they are ready for more information they simply contact our Listingbook rep, who in turn contacts us,” Paperner said in a statement.

In September, Listingbook added seven MLSs to its Listingbook AI system, where MLS data becomes available to homebuyers on Listingbook. The addition brought the nationwide total to 77, which, collectively, represent more than 60 percent of real estate agents nationwide.

via inman.com

Evernote for Real Estate – A sneak peak at Evernote 5 | Armonk Real Estate

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My self-diagnosed, borderline OCD loves every single thing about Evernote. I use it every day in both my work and personal life. So, earlier this week, when I received this little email from the crew at Evernote, excitement doesn’t even begin to express how I feel. Over a hundred new features? I’m in!

Evernote 5 Coming Soon

What’s new?
The design nerd in me loves the redesigned interface and new left panel. If you’re a paperless agent and use Evernote to organize all of your clients and paperwork, the added shortcuts and advancements in viewing both your own and shared notebooks together should make streamlining even more efficient.

TypeAhead search is new as well. It will give you suggestions as you’re typing and also pull up your most recent and saved searches for easy access. They’ve also integrated Mountain Lion’s notification center.

For those of you who use Evernote Food and Hello, those are being integrated as well in their new Atlas feature allowing you to visually see your notes and remember where you were when you took them!

Just getting started with Evernote? No problem. These are a must!

1. Download the web clipper for your browser.
Whatever browser you use (even IE, I’m not here to judge) download this extension. Any website you’re visiting you’re able to clip with just one click. It automatically saves it to your notebooks in your Evernote account.

2. Evernote is everywhere.
Since you’re able to access your Evernote account anywhere, download the app for your mobile devices too! Although the latest updates will be for Mac, Evernote works on Android, Blackberry and Windows devices as well.

3. Go paperless!
It’s scary, I know. Just take baby steps and work your way through it. Evernote has many uses, so start at your own pace and grow with it. Some basic starter ideas:

  • Personal productivity: Type notes during meetings, keep personal and private checklists, save web clippings, photos, files and more.
  • Transaction Management: Keep client’s records, inspection reports, emails, signed documents during and after the transaction. You have the option to share with your clients and keep them in the loop at all times.
  • Checklists and action plans: From listing coordination and seller action plans, closing checklists, and even marketing plans, staying organized and having your information at a glance is key to systemizing your entire business.
  • Share notebooks with clients and team members: Do you manage a team? Have buyer’s agents? An escrow coordinator? Set up notebooks just to share with them, and have them do the same. Embracing the digital lifestyle works great for teams too!
  • Syncs across all your devices so you have everything available: As a mobile professional the ease of having everything sync together is a must. Upgrade to the pro account and you have access even if you’re offline.
Already using Evernote? How do you use Evernote to help keep you organized? Let us know and we’ll share them on Twitter!

via next.inman.com