The smartphone is now themobile office for an ever-growing number of real estate professionals. They’re carrying less equipment as they’re able to do more with this hub of productivity: running apps, retrieving files and contracts, accessing the latest listing info from the Web or their MLS, taking pictures, and communicating with buyers and sellers in whatever mode they prefer.

These devices and their capabilities continue to advance at such a relentless pace that if you bought yours just a year ago, you might suffer a little smartphone envy as you survey the current field. For, the smartphone market carries one unique limitation: The most affordable options are typically tethered to a two-year service contract, periodically forbidding many users the advantages of the latest technology.

But if your contract is expiring and it’s time for a new phone — or you if can justify upgrading your device as a business investment — you may find yourself overwhelmed trying to decide which one can best drive your career forward. In this category, lack of options is not a problem.

China Property Digest: Home price falls easing

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Mon Jun 18, 2012 2:34pm IST

(For a previous issue, please click )

BEIJING, June 18 (Reuters) – Here is a look at the latest news, numbers and more from China’s real estate market.

Investment in the property sector accounted for 13 percent of China’s gross domestic product in 2011.

REUTERS NEWS

Jun 18 – China’s home prices dipped for the eighth straight month in May but the pace of decline eased, fanning talk that the market may be bottoming out and the recent monetary stimulus could set the stage for a rebound.

Jun 18 – China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said that it would stick to property tightening measures and work with other regulators to strengthen the results already achieved.

Jun 14 – China’s central bank and banking regulator denied media reports that they had relaxed rules on home mortgages, underlining the government’s resolve to cool the property sector.

Jun 13 – The National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, said that media reports quoting an unnamed NDRC official as saying loosening property policies was a “second card to save the market” were fabricated.

Jun 11 – Shares in debt-laden Greentown China soared as much as 36 percent on Monday morning after Hong Kong conglomerate Wharf Holdings announced plans to acquire a stake in the Chinese home builder.

Jun 7 – Any move by Beijing to relax restrictions on home purchases for investment is a sure sign that the government is worried about the economy heading for a sudden dive and has resorted to desperate measures to avoid a stimulus programme.

DATA

– China’s real estate investment in May grew 18.2 percent from a year earlier, up from April’s 29-month low of 9.2 percent, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

– China has built at least 20 million square metres of shopping centres in 14 major cities over the past decade, with a further 14.8 million square metres under construction, global property consultancy CBRE Group said.

– China spent 55.8 billion yuan from the government’s coffer to help build affordable homes in the first five months, up 71.7 percent from the same period last year, the Ministry of Finance said.

– China Vanke, the country’s largest real estate developer by sales, reported a month-on-month rise of 19 percent in its sales in May to 10.7 billion yuan ($1.7 billion), reversing a decline in April.

– Average home prices in 100 key Chinese cities fell in May for the ninth straight month, the China Real Estate Index System, a private consultancy, said.

CHINESE PRESS

Jun 18 – China started to see people lining up overnight to buy homes in a project in the eastern city of Nanjing, which showed worries about a comeback in housing inflation. (China Economic Times)

Jun 13 – The chairman of the biggest developer in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, committed suicide as cooling property sales made him unable to repay estimated debt of more than 700 million yuan, some with high annual interest rates of 50-60 percent. (National Business Daily)

Jun 12 – Property projects enjoyed rising client volume after China cut interest rate on June 7 and some developers thus suspended price discounts. (Southern Metropolitan Daily)

THEY SAID

– “Some people, mainly local governments and developers, want China to relax property tightening measures and wish the market to rebound. But their hope must not be fulfilled. Otherwise, the Chinese economy will suffer big turbulance.” (He Keng, deputy head of the finance and economics committee at the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, told a forum in Beijing)

– “Local governments must support construction of ordinary homes, by lowering land prices. Credit policy also needs to be changed to give developers loans and at lower lending rates.” (Fan Jianping, a senior researcher at the State Information Centre, a top government think tank in Beijing)

($1 = 6.3651 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Langi Chiang and Ken Wills; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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After reading this article, people also read:

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• UPDATE 1-China May home prices fall, pace of declines picks upJun 17, 2012
• UPDATE 2-China home price declines slow, Beijing to keep curbsJun 18, 2012
• Fitch cuts India rating outlook to negativeJun 18, 2012

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It is of the utmost importance to us that we keep you, our members, informed regarding the news this week that some LinkedIn member passwords were compromised. We want to reiterate that we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our members.

From the moment we became aware of this issue, we have been working non-stop to investigate it. While we continue to learn more as a result of our ongoing investigation, here is what we know now:

Yesterday we learned that approximately 6.5 million hashed LinkedIn passwords were posted on a hacker site. Most of the passwords on the list appear to remain hashed and hard to decode, but unfortunately a small subset of the hashed passwords was decoded and published.

To the best of our knowledge, no email logins associated with the passwords have been published, nor have we received any verified reports of unauthorized access to any member’s account as a result of this event.

Since we became aware of this issue, we have been taking active steps to protect our members.  Our first priority was to lock down and protect the accounts associated with the decoded passwords that we believed were at the greatest risk. We’ve invalidated those passwords and contacted those members with a message that lets them know how to reset their passwords.

Going forward, as a precautionary measure, we are disabling the passwords of any other members that we believe could potentially be affected. Those members are also being contacted by LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset their passwords.

We are also actively working with law enforcement, which is investigating this matter.

Finally, we’ve enhanced our security measures through an additional layer of technical protection know as “salting” to better secure your information.

We are working hard to protect you, but there are also steps that you can take to protect yourself, such as:

• To take advantage of our enhanced security measures, change your password now by clicking here.
• Make sure you update your password on LinkedIn (and any site that you visit on the Web) at least once every few months.
• Do not use the same password for multiple sites or accounts.
• Create a strong password for your account, one that includes letters, numbers, and other characters.
• Watch out for phishing emails and spam emails requesting personal or sensitive information.

Our efforts to protect LinkedIn members impacted by this incident are ongoing and we will continue to keep you posted here.

For an update click here.

Are you wondering if measuring social media return on investment (ROI) is important?

Do you cringe when you think about putting together another report?

You aren’t alone. But times are changing for social media and these reasons will show you why it’s time to get serious about measuring your results.

Do I Really Need to Measure ROI?

Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room. Is ROI the right measure of success for social media?

There are many who would argue that a financial return doesn’t show the true value of social media for the organization. I would agree that ROI doesn’t paint the full picture.

However, the bottom line is that executives and business owners sleep, eat, and breathe ROI. It has been the measure of success since the beginning of their careers and while we can jump up and down and tell them it isn’t a complete picture, they aren’t going to believe it until they see it.

Therefore, it’s time to get serious about ROI, but that doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice other types of metrics that help to round out the story. You need both and this is why.

Get serious and measure social media results. Image source: iStockPhoto.

#1: ROI is a Necessary Evil

Regardless of whether ROI paints the pretty picture that we want for social media’s value to the organization, it is the universal measure of success for business.

We’ve seen new metrics like Return on Influence and Return on Engagement being talked about. Some marketers like these metrics because they feel they do a better job of telling the story of social media’s value.

I understand the need to have a holistic view on where social delivers; however, we can’t redefine ROI because it doesn’t suit our needs or it doesn’t paint the picture we want. If you don’t start to measure the real return on your efforts, someone is going to do it for you.

And if they do the measurement, you won’t have the opportunity to clarify what ROI isn’t showing and present metrics that help to round out the perspective. You’ll look like the person who was trying to hide a negative ROI to save your project. And yes, when you measure it the first time it will likely be negative.

So it’s time to embrace that ROI is a part of the story and it is our job to make sure we balance ROI with other metrics that show where social delivers incremental value.

Clear ROI is part of a successful social media strategy. Image source: iStockPhoto.

#2: Your Boss Will Demand ROI

There is no denying that management teams and business owners are questioning whether your efforts are delivering results. The 2011 Jive Social Business Index Survey revealed that only 27% of executives with budget control for social media felt that social media is a top strategic priority. 47% of the respondents said a social plan was necessary but not a strategic priority.

This shows you that the jury is still out on whether social media is a mission-critical piece of the marketing mix, at least for those who control the purse strings.

The majority understands that social media is important at some level for the business, but it’s clear there’s still skepticism. I think we can all admit that if the people who control our budget still aren’t sold on whether social media can drive business results, they will continue to invest cautiously.

This means it’s important to be able to show quantifiable results from your efforts. If you aren’t able to demonstrate the strategy is delivering a financial return, you may find that optimism quickly turns to pessimism as other activities are shown to produce results, and your budget could just as quickly disappear.

Show quantifiable results. Image source: iStockPhoto.

#3: Social Media is Resource-Intensive

I think we can all agree that the days of saying that social media is FREE are over. We realize that a successful social media strategy takes a lot of time, and for many of us it’s time we simply don’t have.

The Social Media Marketing Industry Report revealed “a significant 59% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more and 33% for 11 or more hours weekly.” That’s a lot of time, considering that social media isn’t our only job. For many of us, social media is something that has been added to our already full plate.

This has led more people to start outsourcing aspects like content development because they simply can’t produce enough content to generate results in the time they have.

One of the first questions I get from executives is whether they should include the cost of employee time and/or salaries in their social media ROI calculations. They want to understand whether the time employees are spending is worth the expense.

It isn’t because they are trying to launch a war against social media. It is simply a matter of prioritizing resources to the highest-performing initiatives. And if social media can’t be quantified to show a return to the organization, it gets harder to justify the time and budget that is being dedicated to it.

Include the cost of employee time. Image source: iStockPhoto.

#4: You Can’t Expand Without ROI

There are a lot of companies out there that have seen tremendous success in developing large followings and now they’re asking, “Now what?”

The smart marketers didn’t jump into every social media network right away; rather they tested and became awesome in a couple that matters to their business. But now they feel they have demonstrated that social media can work and want to expand into other social networks.

In other situations, marketers realize they need to produce more content because they see the most positive results around the release of new content, but they can’t handle any more internally.

Whatever your scenario is, you won’t be able to secure additional budget dollars to fund your expansion plans if you haven’t demonstrated that the budget that has already been invested delivered a positive return to the organization.

Return isn’t measured in fans and followers; it is measured in dollars and cents. If you want to expand, you need to get serious about measuring social media’s bottom line.

Understand your social media ROI to expand and extend your reach. Image source: iStockPhoto.

#5: Optimization is Critical to Success

While all the other reasons relate to why social media ROI is important for the needs of other people, this one is for you. You are spending time, energy and budget on making social media a success. If you really want it to be successful, it’s critical that you understand what’s actually working and what isn’t.

We all want to prioritize our efforts to the things that produce the highest result, but if you aren’t measuring what’s delivering, you have no idea what you should be doing more of. Further, you won’t be able to test how little tweaks impact important things like conversion rates.

If you truly want to show that social media is a mission-critical element to business, then you need to measure ROI so you can tell exactly what’s working or showing promise and then optimize it.

Optimize until you can’t optimize any more. Imagine if you knew which status update delivered the most conversions for the day. Or which path from social media to the website converted the most leads. Information like that would really help you show a positive ROI in no time.

Colin Firth and his wife Livia Firth have been leaders in the eco movement. The star couple has an eco-friendly home in Umbria, Italy but half their time is spent in their London home. So, it was only natural that the couple would want to make their London home as green as possible. Sadly, their plans have been thwarted for the sake of historic aesthetics.

The actor and his wife applied to place a solar panel on their home in Bedford Park, west London in an architectural conservation area. The solar panel the celebrity couple sought to place on their home was 7ft by 3ft 10in. But the Hounslow council decided the solar panel project the Firth’s wanted hadn’t proven its ability to produce more energy than other renewable energy sources. The original refusal by Hounslow’s council claimed “it has not been demonstrated that the solar panel will produce more energy than other renewable energy sources.”

A planning inspector has stepped in to back the Hounslow council’s decision by claiming that the solar panel was too large and would be of more harm than good.

Roger Shrimplin, the inspector, said, “The proposed solar panel would erode the architectural qualities of the listed host building itself and would cause actual harm to the character and appearance of the Bedford Park conservation area.” He went on to state that, “the harm done to the historic setting and the street scene clearly outweighs the benefits of the project.”

The solar panel would have been visible from the street. But the environment benefits of installing a solar panel are pretty weighty. It appears that this decision to prevent the Firth’s from eco-improving their home has been made purely because it might disrupt the aesthetic qualities of the Victorian estate of Queen Anne-style houses. Not because it would hurt the structure of the home.

The council’s move to turn down the proposal also seems a bit silly when the area is called “Bedford Park Conservation area.” Isn’t the purpose of a conservation area to be environmentally friendly?

Perhaps, the Firth’s and the council can work together to find a suitable alternative to the solar panel project that will keep more in-line with the council’s aesthetic sensibilities.