Daily Archives: November 13, 2012

10 Simple Tips to Becoming a Better Blogger | North Salem Realtor

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It was in 1439 a professional goldsmith created an agent for worldwide change. This invention facilitated enormous evolution to society in Europe and globally. The machine he created called the “printing press” provided for the first time, the means for the mass production of books.10 Simple Tips to Becoming a Better Blogger

His name was Johannes Gutenberg and he was German.

Over 3,600 pages a day could be printed compared to the forty that could be produced by hand printing. This was an increase in production of over 9,000 percent!

This machine changed everything.

Francis Bacon, the English philosopher said in 1620 that printing was one of three things that “changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world”. It introduced the era of mass communication which changed forever the structure of society and culture.

Ideas Crossed Borders

Authors such as Luther and Erasmus became best selling authors and their thoughts and writing allowed the blossoming of the middle class. The status of the elite was challenged. Literacy rose sharply. The monopoly and power of the religious and political leaders was threatened.

It led to the unrestricted circulation of information and perceived radical ideas that now crossed borders quickly and efficiently.

The Age of Digital Self Expression and Creativity

In the 1990′s people started expressing themselves with online diaries. According to Wikipedia, Justin Hall was one of the earliest bloggers who began eleven years of personal blogging in 1994 as the Web started to become widespread.

The phrase was coined “web log“, which has through the wonderful world of language, been transformed into the term “we blog” and hence “blogging“.

The tools for blogging have evolved to the point that the less technical of the population can now publish text, video and images simply and easily without understanding a single line of coding or computer programming. Tools such as WordPress and Tumblr have broken the technical tyranny of the geeks.

Self expression and creativity has exploded online and allowed anyone with enough passion and discipline to publish their ideas via rich digital multimedia.

Blogging plus Social Media

The rise of social media has allowed bloggers to display and market themselves and their content globally without having to pay a cent to a newspaper, television mogul or to the mass media elite.

Bloggers that were previously undiscovered became global brands on topics as diverse as food, fashion and technology. Marketing your blog was no longer restricted to building an RSS or email subscription list.

Publishing and marketing has been democratized. Freedom to express yourself globally is available in seconds and it is also mobile.

The age of the printing press is now threatened after 573 years. Print media marketing has now been surpassed by digital media for the first time in history.

So How do you Become a Better Blogger?

It is quite simple really.

  1. Blog late or early
  2. Blog while travelling
  3. Blog on holidays
  4. Blog even when your friends think you’re mad
  5. Blog on the bus
  6. Blog on the plane
  7. Blog when the boss isn’t watching
  8. Blog when your partner nags you to stop blogging
  9. Blog when your passion has taken a holiday
  10. Blog when you think no one cares about your blog

How About You?

Stephen King the world famous best selling author was asked “how do your become a better writer?” He answered that question in two ways. One word at a time and write 1,000 words every day.

That is what it took for him to become the success he is today.

What are you going to do to become a better blogger? The world is your oyster and it is the biggest opportunity in over 500 years. You are witnessing the biggest change to communication in 20 generations.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments below.

Want to Learn How to Learn How to Become a Better Blogger?

My book – Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 121,000.

You can download and read it now.

via jeffbullas.com

Why the Fiscal Cliff Is Inevitable and Also Necessary | Chappaqua NY Homes

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Image: Fiscal cliff
getty images

The fiscal cliff is a powerful metaphor. It sounds like an impending disaster, but in reality, we’ll wake up on the morning of Jan. 3 and life will be unchanged. Sure, tax rates will nominally be higher, some tax breaks will have been canceled, and the government will be expected to implement major cuts in military and domestic spending. If that continues for several months, it will have an adverse affect on the economy.

(VIDEO: TIME Explains: The Fiscal Cliff)

But letting the law take effect will also have some real benefits. For one thing, on the other side of the cliff, we’ll be a big step closer to the kind of fundamental reform of the tax code that both Democrats and Republicans say they want. Two provisions that limit the deductions and personal exemptions the wealthy can take — similar to the cap on deductions proposed by Mitt Romney — will come back into effect. Capital-gains rates will rise from 15 % to 20%, and dividends will be taxed at normal rates, reducing the incentives for tricks like the notorious “carried-interest loophole.” And instead of a tax system that produces less revenue as a percentage of GDP than at any time since 1950, we’ll move toward one that is adequate to the needs of a modern, dynamic economy. The fiscal cliff is, all by itself, a budget deal and a step toward tax reform. A flawed and dangerous one, to be sure, but a far better starting point for a real budget agreement than the temporary rules of 2012.

(MORE: Fiscal-Cliff Deal? Don’t Hold Your Breath)

Once tax rates and other provisions have returned to their previous levels, as planned, Congress and the White House will have a little time to look at taxes and spending, and decide how best to keep the economy moving, now and in the future. Is it by cutting taxes for low- and middle-income working families, who were hit hardest by the recession and gained little in the George W. Bush years, when most of the benefits of growth went to the top? Or is it another round of tax cuts for those who have gained the most?

Let’s remember also that the fiscal cliff is not a natural phenomenon, it’s the law. None of the tax cuts that will be changed by it were supposed to be permanent in the first place. Some of the cuts, mostly those from the early Obama years, were to provide economic stimulus during the recession. Those should be revisited every couple years, and if we think the economy still needs a boost, we should renew them for another year or two. But the bulk of the tax cuts that expire date from 2001 and ’03. At that time — when our country had budget surpluses — both Democrats and Republicans wanted to cut taxes. But Republicans wanted to cut them by about twice as much and to make much bigger cuts for the wealthy than for the middle class. Rather than compromise with Democrats, Republicans twice employed a special rule, known as reconciliation, to use their narrow congressional majorities to push their version of tax cuts through. Because that special rule can’t be used to make permanent changes that worsen the deficit, they had to put an expiration date on those tax cuts. So the fiscal cliff is a long overdue chance to revisit choices from the past and better address what we need to do for our future.

In the world on the other side of the fiscal cliff, Democrats and Republicans will have no choice but to work together on tax cuts that will be fairer to the middle class and encourage economic growth. And then, over several years, we have an obligation to look closely at Medicare, in particular, and figure out how to slow the growth of health care costs in that program. That work can only begin on the other side of the fiscal cliff.

via ideas.time.com

3 homeowner rights that are often underutilized | Chappaqua NY Real Estate

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USA Today reports that about 132 million people showed up to vote in this year’s election. As large as that number sounds, that maps to only 60 percent of registered voters.

As I see it, everyone who voted (or tried to) did their civic duty, but I’m most humbled by our Floridian compatriots who had to wait in line for hours to cast their votes, and our East Coast neighbors who dialed in and otherwise took time out of their efforts to get back to normal post-Sandy life to make their voices heard.

The fact is, it’s all too easy in the course of everyday life to simply flake when it comes time to vote and exercise one’s civic rights. People do it for many reasons, from feeling like their single voice is too small to have an impact or simply finding it too inconvenient to take the time out of their already-hectic schedules.

Whether your ancestors came over on the Mayflower, a slave ship or via Ellis Island, though, they likely fought hard for your right to vote — and that’s good enough reason to bear the inconvenience to make your little tiny vote count.

In the real estate realm, it’s easy to feel like almost everything about the market, your mortgage and the value of your home is out of your control. But the truth is that there are many real estate rights that go unrecognized and, thus, unexercised:

1. The right to control your own utility bills. Many a homeowner feels slightly held hostage by their utility companies. Who else can you buy electricity, gas or water from, they wonder briefly, before waving a mental white flag when they sign the check for their monthly payment?

In truth, there is much a homeowner can do to control both the amount and the provider of his utility services. You can go solar, whether by buying panels yourself or working with a solar power service that owns the panels and charges you a reduced, preset rate for energy over 20 years.

And there are many other investments you can make — at many levels — in improving your home’s efficiency and, thus, reducing your utility bills. Things like installing dual-paned windows, improving your insulation, installing tankless or solar-powered water heaters, and converting every faucet to a low-flow fixture are among them.

On a less conventional side of things, installing graywater tanks that use wasted sink water for toilet flushing and landscaping, and replacing swathes of green lawn with low-water-consuming native landscaping or food gardens are some more work-intensive — but more rewarding — ways to put you back in control over your household’s energy and water consumption (and expenses).

2. The right to fire your mortgage lender. Most people find their mortgages to be burdensome, to say the least. Even those who aren’t among the 28 percent of homeowners with mortgages that are still underwater are almost always positioned such that their mortgage is their largest monthly expense and a looming financial obligation. Paying it off seems remote and hard to imagine; further, many homeowners will take out equity lines or refinance their mortgages over time, simply restarting the already long countdown to payoff.

But here’s a shocker: Roughly one-third of American homes are owned outright by their owners, free and clear of a mortgage. Truth is, there are many ways to get your home unmortgaged, and I’m not talking about asking your lender to forgive it.

You can exercise your right to live and own your home mortgage-free by pulling one or both of two basic levers: (1) you can cut your existing monthly spending and redirect your savings to paying down the principal balance of your home loan, (2) you can bring more income in, using that to pay your mortgage off earlier than planned, or (3) you can do both!

This might seem impossible, but if this is a right you’d like to exercise, calendar a few quiet hours to really review last month’s bank statements. What you face is a decision about values and priorities: What’s really important to you?

Some financial experts advise that lunches and dinners out, coffee shop stops and cable TV are common categories of budget leaks — these seemingly small expenses add up. But don’t go extreme and try to deprive yourself of every night out or coffee chat with your friends; it’s not sustainable, and you’ll end up turning these moments of happiness into moments of guilt. Instead, cut back where you feel you want to and also cast an eye at larger expenses that can be eliminated.

I’ve known homeowners who have found hundreds of dollars a month they could redirect away from cable TV packages they didn’t really watch and payments for cars and other big toys (motorcycles, boats, etc.) they didn’t really drive.

In the same vein, it can be relatively painless to turn your hobbies or passions into small-scale side businesses, generating some early mortgage payoff funds. I personally know folks doing this through part-time bookkeeping, getting a stand at the local farmers market or even doing some cake decorating on the side. As well, an increasing number of homeowners are using their own homes to generate side income, either renting out rooms or floors on an ongoing basis, or just for a couple of nights here and there on sites like Airbnb and VRBO.

3. The right to HOA sanity. While the vast majority of homeowner associations (HOAs) are functional and smooth, the fact is that many have at least the occasional personality or financial drama. The spectre of rapidly rising dues, inane restrictions on minutiae like the color of your window coverings and scary “surprise” special assessments for unbudgeted property repairs have made many a homebuyer simply refuse to even look at properties that belong to HOAs.

It would be naive and inaccurate to suggest that you can 100 percent bulletproof your HOA experience from these sorts of potential potholes, but there are a number of rights you can exercise to minimize their likelihood of happening.

First, exercise the right — really, the responsibility — to spot red flags of impending HOA dramas before you even close escrow, by truly reading all the HOA disclosures you receive, no matter how mind-numbingly long and boring they might seem. If you see that many homeowners are behind on their dues or that the HOA’s budgets don’t seem to include plans for reroofing buildings, replacing windows or making similar repairs to the common areas over time, be concerned.

And don’t forget the seemingly fluffy newsletters or the seemingly boilerplate board meeting minutes: That’s often where talk of neighbor disputes and proposed dues hikes and special assessments pop up first.

Once you’re part of the HOA, you have even more of a duty-slash-power to participate in it, if you want to do your part to avoid problems. Attending board meetings or even becoming a member of the board is not overkill if you want to have a hand in choosing the accountants, building managers and contractors who will have such a huge impact on your experience as a member of an HOA.

via inman.com

Frustrating reasons for rejected appraisals | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate

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Q: “I used your site approximately 30 days ago to try to refinance the loan on my four-family rental property; the rate was locked and the appraisal came back with a satisfactory value, according to the loan officer … I was told that loan processing would take a little time, but every time I checked I was told that everything was fine and proceeding on schedule. …

Today I received a phone call from the loan officer stating that the loan has been denied by the underwriter because the appraisal was not satisfactory. It seems that the comparables used in the appraisal were not “similar enough.” I asked what that meant exactly and did not get a response.”

A: It is a sorry state of affairs when a would-be borrower pays for an appraisal, which is not accepted by the lender who ordered it, and the loan is rejected as a result. While many transactions are torpedoed by appraisals that come in with values unacceptably low, in this case the value was satisfactory but the appraisal producing it was not. I am told by market insiders that before the financial crisis, this hardly ever happened, but today it is not unusual.

Appraisals are heavily based on comparables, which are similar houses in the same market area as the house being valued, and which were sold in the last six months or so. Much of the expertise of appraisers is in the selection of comparables, and in the ability to make informed judgments regarding how differences between the subject house and each comparable affect the value of the subject house.

A four-family house is much more of a challenge to an appraiser than a one-family house, both because the different units occupied by different families might differ significantly in their condition, and because comparables are more difficult to find. This has always been true, however, and does not explain why rejections based on unsatisfactory appraisals are more common today than in earlier years. This is not something that can be attributed to lender greed, since they don’t make any money on loans they don’t make.

The most plausible explanation is that the quality of appraisals has declined. To check that in the case at hand, I had the frustrated applicant send me a copy of the appraisal, which I went through step by step with an expert, who showed me the deficiencies. The “comparables” were anything but, and the valuation adjustments for differences between the alleged comparables and the subject property defied common sense. It was a poor appraisal, and its rejection by the underwriter was justified.

The quality of appraisals has declined since the regulatory ground rules were changed in 2009. In that year, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), which declared that the agencies thenceforth would purchase only those mortgages that were supported by an “independent” appraisal.

The objective of HVCC was to insulate the appraisal process from influence by any of the parties with an interest in the outcome. Mortgage brokers and Realtors could no longer have any contact with appraisers, and lenders had to obtain appraisals in some manner that prevented them from exercising any control.

To protect themselves from liability, most lenders today order appraisals from appraisal management companies (AMCs), which intermediate between the lender and the appraiser. The AMC selects and pays the appraiser, receives and evaluates the appraisal, and passes it to the lender, who has no direct contact with the appraiser.

Because AMCs operate nationally but do not have appraisers everywhere, more appraisals are being done by appraisers who are not familiar with the local market. Appraisers working for AMCs are also paid less per appraisal than independents — some AMCs put appraisal assignments up for bid, with the low bidder winning the assignment. This may induce appraisers to invest less time. While most appraisals today are done with the same care and professionalism as before HVCC, the fringe of inferior appraisals is larger — and those are the ones that are rejected.

Before HVCC when lenders, Realtors and appraisers talked to each other, the transaction described above might have been aborted by informal discussions regarding the lack of adequate comparables. This would have saved the would-be borrower an appraisal fee. If the comparables were adequate but the appraisal was poorly done, the lender probably would have had it done again with another appraiser who the lender knew was up to the challenge.

HVCC was designed to prevent loan providers from pressuring appraisers to come up with values high enough to make transactions workable in a period of rapidly rising market prices. In the process, however, it eliminated the positive influence of loan providers on the quality of appraisals. In today’s market, there is no danger of inflated appraisals, but we are left with lower-quality appraisals.

via inman.com

Be the best needle in the haystack | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Real estate brokers and agents who want more buyers and sellers to discover them on the Internet — and to be impressed by what they find —  can start by putting themselves in the shoes of their would-be clients.

If your market is Atlanta, Google “best Realtors Atlanta” or “best places to live Atlanta.” Are you in the results? Where?

Try Googling your own name or your brokerage’s name, and see what comes up — your website, or sites over which you have little or no control?

If you Google your name and “reviews,” what are people saying about you?

This little exercise is one example of what Patrick Grandinetti, head of industry across the real estate vertical at Google, calls finding the “pulse” of online consumer behavior.

Once you’ve found the consumer pulse, he said, respond  — either by creating content that will draw “organic” (unpaid) traffic from search engines, or by buying keywords and paying for a set amount of “clicks” (traffic to your website).

Google has an arsenal of tools dedicated to helping you not only create effective content and keywords, but measure the results on your website. Grandinetti made sure to touch on as many of them as he could in a presentation to a room full of Realtors Sunday.

Speaking at the National Association of Realtors’ annual Conference and Expo, Grandinetti seemed intent on winning over any skeptics in the room who might still be spending a significant portion of their marketing and advertising budget offline.

For converts, he also provided detailed insight into how to use a number of Google tools — many free — to grow their business (Grandinetti’s Google real estate team posts updates on Twitter using the handle @GoogleRE — a Web page is in the works).

Having spent nearly a decade in advertising at some big-name firms like Saatchi & Saatchi, DDB, and McCann Erickson before making the move to Google in 2007, Grandinetti understands how traditional advertising works — and how the wealth of information available to consumers on the Internet has undermined its effectiveness.

In the old days, companies with household brand names like Procter & Gamble operated on the premise that there were two “moments of truth” that could make or break sales of their products, he said.

The first moment of truth came when a consumer was, say, standing in front of a shelf of products at a supermarket, with only a few seconds to decide which one to buy.

Consumers had to make a spot decision based on price, their previous knowledge about each product and brand, and whatever additional information its packaging managed to convey.

The second moment of truth was the experience they had when they actually used the product — say toothpaste — for the first time. If they liked it, chances were they’d keep buying it.

“Procter & Gamble says if you can win at the first and second moments of truth, you have a high likelihood of retaining that customer for life,” Grandinetti said.

Google’s ‘zero moment of truth’

But today, consumers can obtain detailed information about virtually any product with a few taps on a smartphone’s touch screen. Advertising may only serve as the impetus for a consumer to launch their own online investigation.

Google calls the decision that results from this online research the “zero moment of truth,” or ZMOT.

Grandinetti told a story about his father purchasing a Canon digital camera after seeing a TV ad featuring Ashton Kutcher.

“I said Dad, he advertised for Nikon,” Grandinetti recalled. After seeing the ad, his father had gone online to research cameras. “He saw an ad for Nikon, but Canon won in that zero moment of truth,” Grandinetti said.

Thanks to online reviews, one consumer’s experience using a product — their “second moment of truth” — can become another consumer’s zero moment of truth.

Consumers have been always been willing do some homework on big purchases like a car or a home. But the rise of consumer rating sites and other sources of online information — and the ease of accessing it via mobile devices — means that the “zero moment” comes into play even with more modest purchases.

Google is so enamored with the concept — which dovetails nicely with the company’s business model — that it’s published an e-book, “Winning the Zero Moment of Truth.”

“Over the past couple of years, online research is changing the nature of the game,” Grandinetti said.

From January 2009 through June 2012, searches related to automobiles were up 262 percent, as were searches related to travel (up 211 percent) and real estate (253 percent), he said.

Applying ZMOT to real estate

Think of real estate brokers and agents as products that consumers research, and it’s not hard to understand how the “zero moment” would apply to them.

Brokers and agents not only need to be discovered, they need people to discover things about them that will differentiate them from the competition.

Finding the pulse of online consumer behavior makes it easier to create relevant website content and keywords.

The process doesn’t have to be rigorous or complex. Grandinetti noted that a quick way to get a feel for what consumers are searching for is to start entering a search term, and see what suggestions Google Instant displays as you type.

As you begin typing “best real estate,” for example, Google Instant may suggest search terms like “best real estate websites,” “best real estate apps,” or even “best real estate companies to work for,” because that’s how most users complete that phrase.

Showing up in a search of “best real estate companies to work for” in your market might not seem like an obvious way to connect with buyers and sellers.

But, Grandinetti asked, “Wouldn’t your customers want to use the company that’s best to work for?”

Google Trends is a free tool that provides more insight, allowing users to type in up to five search terms, and see indexed query growth over time. Users can see results at the global, national, state or local level, choosing the time period that they want to view.

A chart generated using Google Trends shows search volume for “foreclosures” has declined in the Orlando area in the last month, but still outnumbers “vacation homes,” “investment property,” “short sales,” and “rental properties.”

To make sure that Google’s spiders find the unique content you create for your site, Grandinetti recommended Google Webmaster Tools for optimizing websites for crawling.

Grandinetti also recommended another free tool, Google Reader, for staying on top of news about what’s happening in your real estate market and what people are saying about rival companies.

Better to lead than follow?

Many brokers and agents may find that time-tested, proven methods like advertising in newspapers are still working for them today. But Grandinetti suggested that those who haven’t given much thought about how to “win the zero moment,” should feel some urgency to do so.

“Be nimble — experiment,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to innovate.”

There’s often an advantage to being the first to stake out new territory online, he said, citing the example of a “little recipe gadget” Betty Crocker launched that captured the eye of 81,800 users after six months. When Kraft launched what Grandinetti described as a much more sophisticated app, it had only 9,900 users after six months. Betty Crocker won eight times more users because they were first, he said.

Grandinetti encouraged brokers and agents to at least experiment with AdWords, the pay-per-click ad campaigns built around keywords.

“See how many leads you get from spending $50 or $100 day,” he said. “Play around in Google AdWords, it’s an amazing tool.”

To boost your rankings in organic (unpaid) search results, create content that answers questions that your would-be clients are asking.

“Homebuyers have so many questions,” Grandinetti said. “You know how to help them. Position yourself as the expert.”

YouTube videos are a good way to demonstrate your expertise. Choose specific topics that are relevant and useful to your target audience.

“Tips for first time home buyers in Bay Area California,” is a great example of a specific subject that will attract potential clients, he said.

“Don’t be afraid to make a homegrown video of yourself,” he said, citing the YouTube video above as an example.

YouTube — a Google company — is the second-largest search site in the world, he said.

You can build up your customer base by signing up subscribers to your YouTube videos. Create a YouTube channel, and put its URL on your business card.

Research commissioned by Google shows people take three months to one year from the time they begin researching a home purchase until closing (33 percent take three to six months, and 27 percent take 6 months to a year, he said).

Keeping a steady stream of information to those people as they do their research can help you win the zero moment, he said.

Google’s social media offering, Google+, allows users to organize and communicate with their customer networks via circles, targeting specific messages only to first-time homebuyers, or second-home buyers,  for example.

“I send one message to one group, another message to another group,” Grandinetti said.

Like Facebook, Google+ also offers the option of creating a business page that’s geared for building a large audience and marketing to it.

Adding a +1 button to your website allows visitors to recommend the content they find there to other Google search users, and share it on Google+.

Google’s “enterprise class” web analytics tool, Google Analytics, is also free because, Grandinetti said, “we believe, if you have better understanding of the data, you’re going to be a better customer for us.”

Grandinetti’s final piece of advice for brokers was to “make plans to win at ZMOT (zero moment of truth). The No. 1 thing you can do is put someone in charge in the ZMOT. If you don’t put someone in charge, it’s not going to happen.”

via inman.com