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4 real estate tips for negotiating with international clients when buying a Chappaqua NY Home | Inman News for Chappaqua NY Real Estate

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Don’t lose a sale to culture shock

Negotiation practices vary dramatically across the world. If you are negotiating a deal with clients who were born outside the U.S., here are some basic tips that can help you close the deal.

I recently was at a neighborhood get-together where our hosts were from New Zealand and the other guests were from Australia and England. The discussion turned to real estate and what had happened when they purchased their homes. It was fascinating to hear how they approached the negotiation process and how it differs from what we expect here in the U.S.

1. Know the value of what is being offered
One of my neighbors was negotiating for a home that had a high-end custom pool table. The American owners wanted $7,000 to leave it with the house — a very good deal, especially in light of what they paid for it. What they didn’t realize was that our new neighbor had left their pool table in their previous home. The reason was that they discovered that they could purchase a new pool table for the cost of shipping their old one.

The negotiation: The sellers started at $7,000 and when the buyer said “No,” they reduced the price to $6,000. The buyers continued to say “No,” as the price dropped from $6,000, to $5,000, to $4,000, to $3,000, to $2,000, and to $1,000. The sellers finally relented and the buyers picked up the pool table at no cost. It was cheaper for the sellers to leave the table than it was for them to move it.

2. Be willing to haggle
It’s extremely important to understand the other party’s negotiating style. Haggling over price is the norm in many cultures. For example, the sellers of our hosts’ house wanted $4,000 for their sofa, a cowhide chair, and several custom tables designed for the living room.

The negotiation: The buyers initially offered $3,000. The sellers remained firm at $4,000. The buyers came back at $3,500. The sellers still refused to negotiate the price. The buyers walked away from the deal “on principle,” even though they really wanted the furniture.

The sellers could have dropped the price a few hundred dollars or thrown in some other items to sweeten the deal. By refusing to negotiate, they failed to sell the items.

3. Wait them out
Americans are notorious in other countries for being impatient. Americans will make concessions just to wrap up the negotiations. For example, the opening position for some buyers and sellers is “No.” They understand that if they are patient, they will often get what they want. In fact, this scenario is playing out currently with a property on our street.

The negotiation: The American sellers are a recently married couple who plan to build a custom home on another property they own. They received an offer from foreign prospective buyers a tad below where the comparable sales suggest the property will sell.

When the sellers said “No,” the buyers came back with a “standing offer” where they will purchase the property should the seller change their mind. (Please note that for an offer to be valid in most states it must have a cutoff date.)

The sellers are patiently waiting, but their foreign buyers may wait them out. In fact, the owners said that if they don’t receive a higher offer in the next few months, they would probably accept the standing offer.

4. Know their rules
A number of years ago I was selling lots at the Summit above Beverly Hills. We had a group of foreign buyers who spent quite of bit of time with their calculators as they were discussing the various lots in the subdivision. Because they were speaking in another language, I couldn’t tell what exactly was happening.

The negotiation: When the offer came in, it was for six lots. The price was odd, as were some of the terms. I began looking for patterns, and I began to suspect that the prospective buyers were using some form of numerology. (In Chinese numerology, No. 6 is considered to be an auspicious number for business.)

I knew that properties with a four in the address were considered to be unlucky in some cultures. In contrast, the number eight was viewed as being lucky. None of the prices or the addresses added up to eight. Since they placed the offer on six lots, I tried checking the details against the number six.

When I added the up the prices for the six lots, the numbers all totaled six. If you added the lot numbers, they totaled to six. When you added up the offer date and the closing date, the numbers totaled to six (when you added all the numbers together — including the multiple digits in the totals — to form a single digit).

I told the developers what I suspected was happening. They were pretty dubious but agreed to counter back using the same strategy. The buyers signed the deal and closed several months later.

When you deal with clients from other cultures, do your best to determine the negotiating style in the country where they were born. By understanding their cultural approach to negotiation, you will have a much greater chance of winning the negotiation and closing the deal.



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Builders bank on real estate test drive | Inman News in Chappaqua NY

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I’ve noticed a number of news reports lately on the extreme lengths to which builder/developers are going to try to push entrenched would-be buyers off the fence and into buying a property. And bizarrely enough, I’ve seen multiple articles around a single theme: the real estate test drive.

Yes, the real estate test drive. One builder in Georgia is letting would-be buyers spend the weekend in one of their unsold properties for $99, hoping that they’ll love their surroundings so much that they’ll ring up the sales office on Sunday evening and sign the papers to make their vacation home their permanent residence.

And the Wall Street Journal says “dozens” of retirement communities in sunny foreclosure hot spots like Arizona, Florida and California are offering the 55-plus set the opportunity to take a two-night test drive in their fully furnished, luxury-laden model homes for the low, low price of $299 for the weekend.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so far be it from me to criticize these builders’ creativity and hustle. This extreme strategy will undoubtedly generate some revenue from their assets that were just sitting empty before, has already generated a good value in terms of press coverage and might even generate some sales; the Georgia builder says about 17 percent of the 1,100 people who have signed up for the deal have bought homes. Having people pay for the opportunity to sell themselves on the properties? Seems sort of win-win, no?

With that said, I don’t know that the premise of the real estate test drive really deals with the core issues keeping most procrastinating, qualified, would-be buyers on the fence. Maybe for that 17 percent, indecision about the property is the problem, and staying in the most tricked-out model home the developer has to offer will push them into pulling the trigger. But for the other 80 percent-plus of hemmers-and-hawers, there are a number of other issues and experiences they would need to test-drive to thaw their self-imposed homebuying freeze:

1. Test-driving a mortgage: The prospect of having a mortgage — a long-term commitment to paying for a home — is daunting to some would-be buyers and completely horrifying to others. The fact is, even renters have a 30-year (or longer) commitment to paying for housing.

In fact, their commitment is as long as their lifespan — if you live 50 years, and you rent that whole time, you’ll be paying rent for 50 years. If you live another 60 years, but you buy a home now with a 30-year mortgage and you pay it every month without refinancing, in 30 years that obligation is over and that payment will go away.

So, to some extent, we all are “test-driving,” having a long-term commitment to paying for housing, even if we don’t know it. But what renters might be concerned about is making that payment commitment to a larger amount than they are currently paying, without the flexibility to move to a cheaper place and reduce their expenses, if they need to in a financial crunch. What they don’t think about is that homeowners can take in roommates or move and rent their homes out, if their financial picture grows dire.

In fact, if you have a job loss or temporary financial glitch and can’t pay your rent, you’ll likely get booted out within a month or so of missing your first payment. It’s bad form to plan on missing mortgage payments, but if you should happen to, due to unavoidable circumstances, it might take six months of missed payments to get evicted, much longer, in some cases.

(Right now, the average number of missed mortgage payments before a foreclosure ranges from 16 to 22 months, in various states.)

2. Test-driving permanence and immobility: For other buyers, the biggest concern about committing to homeownership has nothing to do with the mortgage — it’s all about needing to be in the same geographic place for years to come. They don’t know if their job will move, or their industry will crumple and they’ll need to relocate.

They don’t know if the loft that seems perfect for them today will still work for them a few years down the road. And they don’t know what the history of home values will hold, which leads to the next thing conflicted homebuyers wish they could test drive: the market.

3. Test-driving the market: Probably the largest driver of homebuyer hesitance is the fear that home prices will continue to decline after they close their home purchase. By waiting, they hope to hedge against further price declines, often delaying the life they really want to live and delaying the tax and other advantages of homeownership.

The best test-drive would be one where they could buy and have some sort of stop-loss in place; a guarantee that the value of their home would never drop below what they paid for it.

Unfortunately, these simply don’t exist.

Fact is, no one knows what will happen in the housing market over the short-term. So, a short-term buy is simply, truly, deeply inadvisable. Wannabe buyers can best hedge against losses by picking a home that should work for their family, life and career plans for the next seven to 10 years (shorter in a market that’s been fairly recession-proof, longer in a locale that has been a foreclosure hot spot, like most of those where the test-drive homes are on offer).

4. Test-drive retirement: Much data has recently been released revealing the distressing delays that the recession has created in the financial lives of many retirement-aged Americans. I suspect that some of these real estate test drives are designed to get those who have pushed retirement off for a few years excited about the vision of the lifestyle they could live in retirement and lured into buying that retirement home now, while prices are low.

But if your current financial plans didn’t allow for you to buy your retirement home with integrity, falling in love with a place during a test drive should not change your decision-making. On the other hand, if you simply need to put retirement off, but it makes financial sense to buy now, while you have a salary and while prices and rates are low, then perhaps the test drive can help the property selection part of the process.

Either way, market dynamics and even falling in love with a particular home should not overshadow the personal finance and life plans that you know make sense in light of your numbers and your vision.

With all that said, I’m a huge believer that only a well-qualified, financially responsible subset of people who really want to be homeowners should buy homes.

But I also know that there are many things besides concerns that can be overcome by a stay in a home that stop even the best-qualified of wannabe buyers from moving forward, despite the current climate of high-affordability and low-rates (which are unlikely to stay this low for much longer).

More critical than the fact that a given house might not be the right one — which is the issue ostensibly addressed by a test drive — are the many, graver concerns with which smart buyers should rightfully be occupied.

From the long-term commitment to a mortgage, to the long-term commitment to a home or geography, to whether or not they are ready to buy or retire in the first place, buyers-to-be are smart to calculate for all these items they can’t test-drive, but can plan and strategize for in their decision-making, before they test-drive or commit to a home.

       

      

 

    

    

     

  

      

 

      

 

   

  

8 ways to engage with Gen X, Y real estate clients and agents | Inman News in Chappaqua NY

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What does it take to work effectively with the next generation of buyers, sellers and agents? The first step is adjusting your lens to see the world their way.

At my recent Awesome Females in Real Estate conference, Cary Sylvester, executive director of technology for Keller Williams (a Gen Xer), and Michelle Holt, director of marketing for TheRedX.com (a Gen Yer), tackled the topic of how to work effectively with Gen X and Gen Y clients and agents. Here are eight key insights.

1. It’s not about the money
Holt is an excellent example of the Gen Y mindset. She left a high-powered job at USB working with high-net-worth individuals (mostly CEOs of oil companies) and moved to TheRedX.com because she wanted a job that gave her more freedom to express her creativity.

Holt says that Gen X and Gen Y expect their workplace to be fun and engaging. They also expect a meritocracy based upon their performance. Because their income is tied directly to their actions, a real estate career can be very appealing.

Strategy: First, if you have Gen X and/or Gen Y agents, do your best to create a fun work environment. They expect to have a say in what happens at work, so be willing to ask their opinions and to listen to what they say.

If you’re showing them property, make the process as fun as possible. Ask plenty of questions and write down what they tell you. This sends the nonverbal message that what they say matters to you.

2. Research, research, research
Before Gen X and Gen Y go to work for a company, hire an agent or buy almost any product, they research it thoroughly online.

Strategy: Managing your online reputation is critical. Begin by Googling yourself and your company to see what others are saying about you online. You can also use StepRep.com and Google Alerts to keep up-to-date on others’ posts about you or that mention you.

3. Never talk down to them
As Holt put it, “I don’t want to buy a house from my parent.” Nothing will turn off a Gen X or Gen Y client faster than an agent who talks down to them by saying, “Oh honey, you don’t want to do that!” They want the truth, even if they don’t like it.

Strategy: Instead of advising a Gen Xer or Gen Yer on what to do, a better approach is to say, “Here are the pros and cons as I see it. What’s your opinion?” or “I’ve been noticing that you seem to like large dining rooms. Is that an important criterion to add to the features that you would like in your next home?”

4. Lifestyle matters more than the property
Many Gen X and Gen Y buyers are willing to accept a lesser property in order to have access to their preferred type of lifestyle.

Strategy: When you market your listings, make sure there is plenty of information about the lifestyle in the area, including videos, reviews of local restaurants, nearby recreational activities, and whatever else makes living in that location special.

5. Just because they do Facebook doesn’t mean they’re good at being face-to-face
According to Holt, because many Gen Yers rely heavily on texting, they may have poor telephone and face-to-face skills. Furthermore, they may not react well to face-to-face confrontations.

Strategy: As an agent who represents Gen Y clients, adjust your communication style to be like that of your clients rather than expecting them to adjust to your style. Also, be prepared to help them navigate through transaction-related problems. Always keep in mind that it’s their house and it’s their decision.

6. I have nothing to hide
Many members of Gen X and Gen Y aren’t particularly concerned about privacy. Their attitude is, “I have nothing to hide.” Sadly, many younger people fail to realize not everyone shares this point of view.

Strategy: Authenticity and transparency are critical when you work with Gen X and Gen Y. If you are working with Gen X and Gen Y agents, educate them about your expectations regarding what constitutes appropriate behavior.

If you’re working with Gen X and Gen Y clients, your online persona must match who you are in person. Consistency matters. Don’t expect them to keep what happens in the transaction private. They share almost everything with their peer group.

7. They lack the ability to focus
The challenge with buying or selling real estate is the incredible amount of paperwork and details that must be managed on your client’s behalf. It’s hard for many younger clients to stay focused on everything that must be done.

Strategy: Break the transaction process into simple steps rather than overwhelming them with everything at once. The key phrase to keep in mind is “baby steps.”

8. Show me the value
Gen X and Gen Y love discounts. If they are going to pay retail, they must be convinced that what they’re purchasing is really worth it. A key phrase they use is, “I want my money’s worth.”

You must have a value proposition that clearly demonstrates how you are worth the fees that you charge. Your goal is to make sure they perceive they are getting what they pay for.

As Holt put it, “My generation has a different filter. Listen for the differences and be aware of how your filter differs from ours.”

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Reading into real estate demographics | Inman News in Chappaqua NY

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Cheryl Russell is a professional demographer. Her job, which she does well, is to notice certain trend lines in statistical data. I became familiar with her and her blog, “DemoMemo: Demographic Trends with Attitude,” when someone forwarded me one of her March blogs with the headline, “Steep Decline In Homebuying Among Young.”

That’s the kind of trend lines that catch my attention — especially when I had seen nothing else about that subject from the traditional housing or census reports. I gave Russell a call, but before asking her about that particular blog, I was curious how one gets to be a professional demographer.

It wasn’t all that difficult. She went to Cornell University, where she earned her master’s degree in demography — who knew there was such a curriculum? Soon afterward, she became editor of American Demographics. I missed that one also; gee, I need to get out more.

Then she moved to the Boomer Report. For the last 20 years she has been working for New Strategist publications, which she tells me produces demographic reference tools.

If you think this kind of work is boring, well, I won’t argue. However, some of her blog posts fascinate me, even when they are just numbers. Recent subjects include: “Who Goes To The Movies,” “The Mystery of Travel Statistics,” “A New Baby Bust,” and “The Boomer Inheritance.”

Sometimes her blog posts are as short as one line. The post, “Little Savings,” reads en toto, “percentage of workers who have saved $100,000 or more: 24 percent.”

Russell began April with a blog post called, “The Housing Market’s Problem,” and I’ll reprint it here in its one paragraph entirety.

“Yes, the unemployment rate is falling. Slowly. This morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate declined to 8.8 percent in March, down from 8.9 percent in February. We may be on the road to recovery, but our progress is blocked by what has been destroyed: confidence. The average American worker feels much less secure in his job than he did a few years ago. The percentage who think there is no chance they could lose their job in the next year, as shown in the post below, fell from 71 to 52 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to the General Social Survey. This insecurity might be good news for businesses that want to hold down wages. But it is a disaster for the housing market. With the threat of unemployment looming over them, how many will be brave enough to buy a house? Apparently, not many.”

Good stuff, right?

So, that takes me to the blog post that caught my eye. Homebuilders, take note.

According to Russell, young adults are more hesitant to buy a home today than at any time in the past quarter century.

When I told Russell I hadn’t read anything on this subject before, she told me that was because she dissected the existing data differently, looking at homeownership in five-year age groups.

“If you look at these groups, you can see that the 30- to 34-year-olds had the biggest decline in homeownership rates since the market for ownership peaked in 2004,” Russell said. “And that was a 5.8 percent decline. That got me interested in what has happened in that age group because this is a critical group for the housing market –this is the first group where homeownership rises above the 50 percent level.”

To see what happened with 30- to 34-year-olds, Russell turned back to the prior grouping, the 25- to 29-year-olds, to see how their ownership changed from 2005-10.

“Homeownership in that age group increased because as people age they are more likely to become homeowners,” said Russell. “But the increase was so much less than it had been in the previous comparable five-year periods that it became clear the 25- to 29-year-olds were becoming much more cautious about buying homes relative to that age group 10 or 20 years ago.”

Here’s the key statistic, as I saw it: If you look at 25- to 29-year-olds as they move into the 30- to 34-year-old age bracket, from 2005-10 their homeownership rate increased 10.7 percent, which compares extremely unfavorably with the 20.2 percent increase a decade earlier for that same age group. Going back two decades, for that same cohort, there was a 14.1 percent increase in the homeownership rate.

If Russell is correct, the enthusiasm for homebuying in that age group is much less than it has been in the prior two decades.

Here’s something else Russell points out: The median age of homeowners in new homes (a structure built in the past four years) is 40. That compares to the median age of 52 for all homeowners. In fact, the under-40 age group is half of all owners of new homes, which is why a dampening enthusiasm for homeownership should be a bit frightening for builders.

“Developers and homebuilders are looking at a very different environment than they have ever experienced in their careers,” said Russell. “It’s going to be an environment that may be with them for the rest of their careers, so they have to learn how to function in this new, more cautious environment.”

For the 30- to 34-year-old group, homeownership remains at 51.6 percent, which means more people in that age group would still prefer to own rather than rent.

Since the Census Bureau has been tracking this information starting in the early 1980s, homeownership in this age group has never fallen below 50 percent. If it does, that would be, as Russell noted, a very big deal, “because it would be very clear to everyone that this important age group is not buying home.

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Green and Healthy: Shouldn’ t Our Homes Be Both? | Chappaqua NY Homes

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Robyn Griggs Lawrence thumbnailOf the nearly 80,000 chemicals in commerce, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has tested only 200 for toxicity. These chemicals contribute to indoor air that’s five to 10 times more unhealthy than outside air. And children now spend an average of 90 to 97 percent of their time indoors.

Based on these sobering statistics, green building veteran David Mosrie presented a number of fine solutions for making our homes healthy and toxin-free in “Exploring a Health-Based Model for Sustainability” on The Healthy House Institute’s website this week.

“The vogue strategy in the U.S. green building industry of airtight shells and chemically based construction materials, driven by an unchecked zeal to pursue increasingly incremental energy efficiency savings, is broadly accepted throughout the industry,” Mosrie writes. “However, we feel this strategy and the value structure that supports it should be earnestly re-examined. We feel there is a better way. “

Mosrie and Anthony Brenner founded Push Design in Asheville, North Carolina, after Brenner discovered that his 9-year-old developmentally disabled daughter suffered from an acute case of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS). Upon further investigation, the team discovered that 4 million people in the United States suffer from MCS, and significantly more suffer from lower grade forms of environmental and chemical sensitivities, including childhood asthma. According the American Medical Association, polluted air causes 94 percent of all respiratory ailments, accounting for a third of the total cost of health care in the United States. “Through one father’s passionate quest to build a safe and healthy environment for his daughter we discovered a promising new path for sustainable design and construction,” Mosrie explains.

Push Design built a “formative model for what we feel is the next frontier of sustainable design and construction.” They developed their Health-Based Building strategy after tackling three key issues.

1. Energy Efficiency—At What Cost?

“While energy efficiency is without question an important component of sustainability, it is but a single component, and establishing it as the defining parameter and main measure is a misappropriation,” Mosrie states.” A more comprehensive perspective is called for. Is an energy efficient home that does not sincerely account for the environmental impact or long-term health effects of its residents truly sustainable?”

2. Reasess Values and Priorities

“We put forth the premise that the overriding principle should be Health. Health can then be divided into two major categories – Human Health and Environmental Health. Energy Efficiency is but a component of the latter subcategory, and should be reassigned to this position.”

3. Restructure Values for Health-Based Building

“As we work regularly with hypersensitive clients, we have developed strategies and implemented materials that prove that a significantly higher standard of health can be implemented without sacrificing performance or incurring significant additional costs.”

Push Design’s model incorporates the following basic design principles:

One of the major failings in modern building practice is an over-reliance on mechanical solutions and the lack of sincere exploration of the potential impact of passive strategies, Mosrie states. He advocates scaled down active systems as a secondary strategy while maximizing passive strategies such as thermal mass and breathable wall systems first.

The Precautionary Principle states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action. “The current system has effectively given the public a false assurance that a stricter protection standard has been established, either by the government or the certifying authority, where actually the average LEED-certified building achieves only 6 percent of its total points for ‘indoor environmental quality,’ the category most closely tied to health,” Mosrie states.

“We often face the offhand objection that our approach must be significantly more expensive as we employ materials that are at a premium price,” Mosrie states. “However, our recent projects have come at market cost or less when the final tally was calculated—and with a unique palate of benefits not found in most projects (carbon negativity, nearly toxin-free, mold-resistant, pest resistant, others).” The team takes a systems-based approach and keeps an open mind to new materials and solutions.

“Although we applaud the advance of the sustainability industry in the U.S. over the last 10 years, we have not yet achieved our goals,” Mosrie concludes. “We are confident that the use of dangerous and impactful industrial chemicals is not the solution, and that this strategy does not reflect the core principles of sustainability or ecological design. We should attain to a higher standard. In fact, we must. “

To learn more about how you can keep your home green and healthy, check out Green and Healthy: Make Your Home Both in Natural Home & Garden.

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You can create an energy-efficient yet toxin-free home. Photo By Marshal Safron

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7 Habits of Professional Bloggers | Chappaqua NY Homes

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This guest post is by Ali Luke of Aliventures.

Your blog isn’t growing as fast as you’d hoped.

You’re working hard—and trying to follow all the advice which you’ve read online—but you’re not seeing the traffic or subscriber levels that you’d like, and you’re not making quit-your-day-job levels of money. Actually, you’re not making much money at all.

Professional blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme—and I’m sure you’ve discovered that for yourself. But although building a successful, income-producing blog might take a bit longer than you wanted, it’s far from impossible.

In fact, it’s just a case of slowly but surely improving your game. These are seven habits which top bloggers share. Are you missing any of them?

1. Learning

Being willing to learn, consistently, is crucial to success in today’s fast-moving world—but that’s especially true in blogging, where technological changes mean that last year’s top sites are this year’s has-beens.

As I’ve met more and more great bloggers, I’ve been struck how much they invest in learning. They go to conferences, they read ebooks and take ecourses, and they make sure they keep improving their skills in the two areas which matter most: being able to write well and being adept with technology.

First step

Become a regular reader of great blogging and writing related blogs. My top three are:

Take it further

Buy an ebook or take an ecourse that’ll help you take your blogging further. A great one to start with is 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, because it combines solid theory with practical exercises, and it covers a wide range of beginner-friendly topics.

2. Sustainability

Your blogging needs to be sustainable. While you might not be making much money to start with, you should aim to make enough to invest in some learning materials—and to cover your hosting, domain name registration, and other blogging expenses.

You also need to make sure that you’re being realistic about the time you can spend on your blog. Sure, you might have the energy to write all weekend when you first start out—but will you be able to do that month after month? An awful lot of would-be probloggers give up after a few weeks because their blogging schedule just wasn’t sustainable.

First step

If your hosting and other expenses mean that your blog’s currently running at a loss, find one simple way to monetize it. That might mean finding a great affiliate product to recommend, installing a donation button, or putting up Google AdSense.

Take it further

Plan out major purchases—like ecourses or conference tickets—in advance. Look for ways to cover the costs from your blogging income, rather than out of your own pocket. The first time I went to South by South West, I released an ebook which paid for the cost of my trip (you can read how I did it here on ProBlogger).

3. Consistency

Can you imagine reading a post like this on ProBlogger?

Sorry guys, I know I haven’t updated in a month, I’ve just been really busy…

Of course not. In fact, if even a couple of days went by without a ProBlogger update, I bet Darren would be inundated with emails from worried readers asking what was wrong. Professional bloggers post consistently—whether that means once a week or three times a day.

Posting consistently shows that you take your blog seriously. It gets readers into the habit of coming back to read new posts—and it gets you into the habit of writing regularly.

First step

Decide on a sensible, sustainable posting schedule. It’s fine if that means one post a week—readers would rather have one great post every week than seven rushed posts one week then nothing for a month.

Take it further

Write posts ahead of time, so that you’ve got some “banked” for busy periods. You can schedule a post to publish in the future using WordPress, so your posts can keep going up consistently even if you’re jetting off on holiday.

4. Self-discipline

The sun’s shining outside. There’s a show I want to watch. And I really should do the dishes…

It’s all too easy to think up excuses to leave your desk and your blog. Even if you love writing, you probably find it hard to sit down and stay focused while you’re working on a post. I write for a living and I still find it challenging!

That’s why self-discipline is so important for professional bloggers. You need to be able to work on your blog without checking Twitter every two minutes, and without getting distracted by everything else that’s going on around you.

Self-discipline doesn’t just mean sitting down and working, though. It also means knowing when to stop working. That might mean being self-disciplined enough not to check your emails during dinner, or not obsessing over Google Analytics.

First step

Next time you sit down to write a post, close your internet browser first. Don’t open it up again until you’ve been writing for at least 30 minutes.

Take it further

Find ways to bolster your self-discipline by changing your environment:

  • Take your laptop to a coffee shop that doesn’t have wi-fi.
  • Get up earlier so you can blog before work, rather than struggling to have motivation to blog when you get home.
  • Block websites which you find yourself accessing too often.

5. Integrity

This might seem like an odd habit to include on the list, but I think integrity is extremely important for professional bloggers. The best bloggers I know are people who I put a lot of trust in. I buy their products—and I’m confident that these will be worth my money. I buy products which they recommend—and I know that the blogger isn’t just hyping something in order to get a few dollars in commission.

I can’t tell you what integrity means for you and your blog. But I suggest that you give it some thought. It’s very easy to lose readers’ trust—and once you’ve lost it, they won’t be coming back. Worse, they might warn other people to steer clear of you.

First step

Make sure you always disclose affiliate links. This isn’t just to help readers trust you—it’s also a legal requirement if you live in America.

Take it further

Think through any moral grey areas carefully. For instance, would you run a sponsored post on your blog—and if so, would you disclose its status? Would you promote a product which you hadn’t tried out yourself—and if so, would you make that clear to your readers?

6. Courtesy

I’ve seen a few train-wreck situations in my time in the blogosphere, where comment threads have got out of hand, or where two bloggers have attacked one another in their posts. It’s never a pretty sight, and it always gives me a dim view of the people in question.

So courtesy is a vital habit. That means responding politely and pleasantly to people—even if they’ve said something which makes you angry. If your blog is still small, courtesy might also mean replying to all your comments. If your blog is too big to do that, courtesy might prompt you to explain on your “About” page that you can’t reply to everyone but that you do value their comments.

First step

If you’re ever tempted to post a blazing angry comment, stop. Walk away for a while—at least an hour if you can.

Take it further

Consider having a comments policy which encourages (or requires) all your blog’s readers to interact respectfully. That doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree—but they have to avoid using aggressive language or posting personal attacks. Remember that many readers may read the comments, even if they never post one.

7. Growth

Finally, professional bloggers don’t stay in the middle of their cozy comfort zone. If they did, they’d never have got far. They keep on growing—stretching themselves, trying new things, bringing in new readers, and launching new products.

Growth isn’t always easy. There’ll be plenty of times in your blogging journey where you’re nervous about taking the next step. Perhaps you’ve never sent out a guest post, because you’re worried about being rejected. Or perhaps you’ve not made a start on that ebook you’ve got planned, because you know it’ll be a lot of work.

But every single problogger had to write their first guest post, launch their first product and go to their first conference. I’m sure they were all nervous—there’s nothing wrong with that—but what matters is that they did it anyway. And that’s how they, and their blogs, grew.

First step

Try something which challenges you: maybe emailing a blogger who you admire, or sending out your first guest post.

Take it further

Keep looking for new ways to grow. That might mean trying a joint venture, taking an ecourse, going to a conference, writing an ebook, hiring a personal assistant … or almost anything. It’ll probably feel scary the first time you do it, but it’ll quickly get easier.

So—which of these seven habits could you work on today? And if you think I’ve missed out a vital habit, add an eighth (or more!) in the comments.

Ali Luke has just released a (totally free) mini-ebook, Ten Powerful Ways to Make Your Blog Posts Stronger. It’s packed with great advice, clear examples and quick exercises to get you to take action. Click here to grab your copy now.

via problogger.net

NAR pushes for gradual changes to secondary mortgage market | Chappaqua NY Homes

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Former high-level officials for Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush agree that any changes to the secondary mortgage market to drive private capital back into housing must be gradual. Otherwise, the shock to the system could destabilize the economy and housing.

“You don’t want the medicine to kill you,” said David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Obama and one of the chief architects of his election three years ago. “You want to come out healthier on the other side.”

Dana Perino, the chief spokesperson for President Bush during his second term, predicted that lawmakers would debate reform proposals for the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for another two years before changes are enacted. “You can’t throw this thing in reverse,” she said, referring to the need to take time in crafting a solution to the two companies. As recently as last week, Fannie Mae announced it needed another federal infusion of $8.5 billion as it works through the bad loans on its books.

The message from Perino and Axelrod jibes with the one REALTORS® will be sending to their members of Congress this week on their visits to Capitol Hill. NAR’s proposal calls for replacing the two companies over time with another entity that maintains federal support of the market without allowing executives and shareholders of the new company to privately profit while taxpayers take any losses.

Keeping the MID Intact

During those Capitol Hill visits, REALTORS® will also be talking about the need to preserve the mortgage interest deduction, and in response to a comment from a REALTOR®, imploring Axelrod to talk to his boss about the importance of the deduction to the young buyers she works with, Axelrod said he generally agreed with the need for the MID to benefit households getting into the housing market and trying to build wealth.

Maintaining the current value of the deduction for higher-wealth households is something that should be talked about, said Axelrod, alluding to a controversial proposal in the Obama administration’s latest budget request to cut the value of MID and other itemized deductions for higher-income households.

“Your young couple should be able to take advantage of that tax deduction,” he said, but that raises the question of whether there should be a “limit so [the deduction] is there for that young couple that really needs the help.” The Obama administration’s proposal would cut the value of itemized deductions to 28 percent for households in the 35 percent tax bracket.

‘Nudge Lawmakers In a Creative Direction’

Both Perino and Axelrod encouraged REALTORS® to use their meetings with lawmakers this week to drive home their messages on policies that impact housing.

“NAR is an amazingly powerful organization,” said Perino, “not because you have a great D.C. lobbying group, but because you represent all those communities. Members of Congress want their communities to thrive, so if NAR comes with creative ideas and a united front, you can nudge lawmakers in a creative direction and get things done.”

Axelrod ended his comments with a note of optimism. “It’s a testament to our country,” he said, “that we’re always perfecting our union, always moving forward — and hopefully we do that in a way that sustains and strengthens the middle class. Key to that is the work you do, home ownership.”

Chappaqua NY Homes

Chappaqua NY Real Estate Hit With Double Dip | 45% Drop In Sales | RobReportBlog

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Chappaqua NY real estate got hit hard over the last six months through March 2011.  Sales dropped 45%.  In the same period in 2010 there were 46 sales in Chappaqua and in 2011 that number fell to 25.

The median price of a Chappaqua NY home rose 3% to $900,000.  Last year the median price of a Chappaqua NY homes was $873,800.

2011 Chappaqua NY Real Estate stats

25  homes sold

$900,000   median price

$1,800,000    high price

$288,000   low price

3095     average square feet

$316  average price per foot

187  average DOM

93.76%   average sold to ask

2010 Chappaqua NY Real Estate stats

46  homes sold

$873,800    median price

$2,625,000    high price

$545,000    low price

3240   average square feet

$310  average price per foot

179  average DOM

94.15%    average sold to ask

Chappaqua NY Homes

Chappaqua Luxury Homes

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