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Daily Archives: April 10, 2013
The Only Real Way to Learn About Blogging | Waccabuc Realtor
Darren,
I couldn’t agree more! I started a blog a few years ago – just to learn about blogging. I started with an assumption of who my target audience was. But I wasn’t sure. Nonetheless, I decided to JUST START and to see who showed up to read it. I wrote “essays,” which were simply my opinions and observations about a particular topic (Business Process Management). Nobody cared. Not even my Mom. I got very little traffic.
But I paid attention to my stats. My stats told me what pages and file downloads were popular. Once in awhile, one of my site visitors would E-mail me or call me with a question. Those people weren’t from my assumed target audience. After a few E-mails and calls, I began to suspect that those people were my TRUE target audience. So, I started another blog (http://www.bpaacademy.com) to test my assumption.
But first, I created a couple of information products: an eBook and an assessment spreadsheet. Then, I started transferring some popular posts from the old blog to the new blog. Right away, a few sales trickled in. That made me suspect that I might be on the right track.
Then I crashed my site and now I’m working to rebuild it – into something better. That incident was certainly tragic, but I learned how not to make those mistakes again.
I have lots to do on the second blog. It’s crude and needs many more posts. But, because I had that first, experimental blog, I KNOW what to do. Yes, the first blog was not a “success” from a monetization perspective. But it was an overwhelming success from a learning perspective.
“Just start” is some of the best advice we can give fellow prospective bloggers. Results prove this is a very practical approach.
Good Blogging!
Jim Reardan
via problogger.net
30 Steps to Energy Efficiency – Step 1: Call Your Utility Company | South Salem Real Estate
The following energy-saving tip is brought to you by CleanEdison.
Tonight when you get home from work or school, call your utility company and ask what incentives they have for you to get an energy audit for your home. Many utilities have been offering free energy audits for years, but very few people have actually taken advantage.
In case you’re unfamiliar, an energy audit is an assessment of your home by a certified energy rater in which they use diagnostic equipment to determine a list of recommendations for how you can improve the efficiency (and comfort) of your home.
If your utility offers free or discounted audits, make an appointment for after April, so you’ll have done most of the easy stuff before he/she gets there.
Estimate Of Recoverable US Gas Reserves | Cross River Real Estate
A biennial survey of U.S. gas reserves has just printed its highest-ever estimate, reports the Financial Times.
The Potential Gas Committee says there is now 2,384 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas in America, up 486 tcf from the previous all-time high in 2010.
Most of the new reserves came from recalculations in the Atlantic, Rocky Mountain and Gulf Coast areas.
Here’s why it went up, according to PGC Director John Curtis, via PGC’s release:
Twenty Percent of Bankers Expect Lending Standards to Loosen | Katonah Homes
Expectations among bank risk professionals for the relaxation of lending standards increased sharply in the first quarter, rising from 12.1 to 19.9 percent, according to the quarterly FICO/PRMIA) survey.
One out of five bank risk professionals now expect the approval criteria for loans to become less stringent, the third highest level ever registered for looser lending standards in the three year history of the FICO survey. The rising expectations for looser standards is a reversal of bankers’ views in the fourth quarter of 2012, when only 12.1 percent expected standards to become less stringent, the lowest level in survey history.
The survey, conducted for FICO by the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA), found lenders more bullish on the housing recovery than at any point in three years, with 71 percent of respondents saying home prices are “rising at a sustainable pace” in the context of mortgage lending risk. In addition, 39 percent of respondents are expecting mortgage delinquencies to decrease over the next six months, while another 45 percent expect delinquencies to remain flat and only 16 percent expect an increase.
However, there is also a high degree of concern about the supply of credit that will be available to finance the recovery. Even though the Mortgage Bankers Association forecasted a 14.5 percent increase in purchase originations in 2013 over 2012, some 42 percent said that the supply of credit for mortgages to buy homes will he either slightly or significantly short of demand. The survey found that that 60 percent of bank risk professionals expect the supply of credit for mortgage refinancing to meet demand.
“The latest survey results, combined with data that indicates the real estate market is improving in many regions, paint a positive picture for a sector of the economy that has been slow to join the recovery,” said Dr. Andrew Jennings, chief analytics officer at FICO and head of FICO Labs. “Mortgage lenders have been understandably guarded over the past five years. The improvement in their sentiment should be welcome news, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see lenders cautiously expanding their mortgage and home equity lending businesses.”