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Recovery slows in hardest hit housing markets | Waccabuc NY Real Estate
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The 4 Myths of Facebook Marketing | Waccabuc NY Real Estate
There are many myths circulating online, such as the little green men are about to invade the planet and that the end of the world is happening in 5 days according to the Mayan calendar. There are also many social media myths and that includes those about Facebook marketing.
Facebook with over one billion users “is” the default social network for nearly 50% of the people that use the internet on the planet. No other social media platform comes close to its global user acceptance.
In fact, in the USA and many other English speaking countries it has almost reached saturation point with growth flat-lining or even declining.
It is changing how we communicate. Email is discarded in favor of a private message on Facebook. Forget sending your teenager an email, just “Facebook” them and you have a better chance of them receiving the message as often their email accounts go unchecked or un-monitored for days or weeks.
Facebook has become the private bulletin board for family and friends as updates, holiday, event and party images are shared to the private communities that have formed around social connections and familial relationships.
Talk to a brand about social media marketing and instantly it is a discussion about how do you gain Facebook “likes”, pass the magic 1,000 barrier or build a Facebook app.
Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are like the neglected students at the back of the class with the plaintive cry of ”pick me, pick me”.
Facebook Posting Frenzy
What you may not have noticed is that there is an almost unseemly Facebook posting frenzy happening. People and brands are posting images of dogs, cats and aliens just to get attention..any attention!
Posting interesting content 3-4 times a day that people commented on, liked or shared was enough in the past to keep your updates appearing in the timelines of fans.
This is no longer optimal it seems because Facebook has changed the game. Posts or images that were shared or liked dozens of times are now struggling for visibility.
Why? Facebook adjusted its “Edgerank” calculation that determines what posts appear in Fan’s timelines. The organic Facebook marketing that we all enjoyed has been diminished by Facebook making sure that less of brands updates appear on the Facebook’s fan pages. Updates are now appearing in 15% or less of all timelines.
Twitter with its unfiltered stream is starting to look more attractive.
Myth One: Facebook will not change the game
If there is one thing that you must understand about social media is that it is evolving rapidly and expecting the rules to stay the same is an assumption you can not afford to embrace. Marketing Land mentioned and highlighted this changing of the rules and the reduction in organic Facebook marketing virality and reach. Some reports indicate that the reduction in the number or readers (views) of your pages updates is in the range of 5-40%.
Keep in mind that for Twitter and Google+ that 100% of all updates are in the stream.
Facebook owns its network and it will continue to change the rules to suit its vision and commercial interests.
Myth Two: Facebook marketing will always be free
Facebook has gone public and the only way Facebook can monetize their platform is through advertising. The Google social network Google+ doesn’t need to place advertising in its stream or side bars because Google Adwords is their river of gold for the search giant.
Facebook will continue to look at ways of creating revenue that pays the bills because now they have shareholders to placate. Want to reach more fans?… then you will need to start to reach into your pocket and pay the piper.
Facebook’s next steps will include the monetization of the mobile platform Instagram that they paid $1 billion for. Mobile ads are the next frontier.
Myth Three. You own your Facebook account
The reality is that you are just a renting tenant on Facebook and you are there under their rules, terms and conditions.
Break the rules and you pay the price. Recently the pop culture blog and website “The Cool Hunter” had its Facebook page with 700,000 fans shutdown. This was due to “copyright issues” according to Facebook.
The challenge for brands that are heavily Facebook centric for their social media marketing is that an unexpected “shutdown” can leave a severe dent in traffic to your websites. The Cool Hunter saw a drop in traffic of over 10% when its Facebook page was shuttered.
Just keep in mind that Facebook doesn’t have a call center for handling complaints. The lights are on but no customer service folk are at home.
Myth Four. You own and control your content on Facebook
Facebook is the repository for most of the world’s photos with 300 million photos being uploaded every day. It is the largest photo site in the world by far. This content is not yours according to Facebook’s T’s & C’s. Despite that, people treat Facebook like a hard disk backup for their images, videos and content.
Make sure that your photos and content is organised and saved somewhere else in case you suffer the same fate as The Cool Hunter”.
The Solutions:
So should you stop using Facebook for your marketing? Is social media marketing doomed? The answer is that social media will continue to offer a powerful and crowd-sourced means to market your brand but Facebook’s changes just brings us back to basics of taking control of your online assets.
Here are 4 tactics that will ensure that you are investing the time, effort and resources in the digital assets that you own and control.
#1. Create and post content to domains you own
These include your your blog, website and online store. You bought the domains and they are under your direct ownership, so make sure that the majority of your content including any multi-media is posted there. Building online assets is vital in a web focused world.
#2. Build email lists
Email may not be as sexy and as cool as social media but it offers one distinct advantage. You own your list. So make it easy people to subscribe to your blog or website via email. It is a digital asset that is often undervalued, so concentrate on continuing to build that subscriber base.
#3. Invest in optimizing your blog or website for search engines
What a lot of people don’t realize is that 75% of all clicks from search engines are from organic search results. That traffic is free.
So optimize your blog and website to make it easy for Google to index your content. Also don’t forget to optimize your social media accounts for search engines by including keywords in descriptions, tags and categories. (amongst other SEO friendly tactics)
#4. Build followers and tribes on other social media channels
Other social networks offer great alternate opportunities for driving followers and traffic to your website. Twitter’s potential is often underestimated and new emerging platforms such as Pinterest are rapidly being recognized as vital social media networks that provide portals and links to your online properties.
What About You?
Is your social media marketing Facebook centric? Have you got a plan B?
What other social networks drive traffic to your blog? Is SEO and search engine friendly tactics part of your digital marketing strategy?
How is your email marketing going?
Look forward to hearing your stories and experiences in the comments below.
Want to Learn How to Market Your Business on Social Media?
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 120,000.
You can download and read it now.
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via jeffbullas.com
Luxury Prices Fall Despite Tight Inventories | Waccabuc Real Estate
Though inventory shortages began at the lower price tiers, tight inventories have worked their way up to the luxury levels in the past two quarters. Expensive homes are selling faster than they were a year ago but third quarter prices are down in many markets compared to a year ago.
The median luxury property is taking nearly 200 days to sell this week, far above the 5.4-month supply for all price ranges. However, this is the time of year when inventories traditionally increase, especially in the upper price tiers. Last year in December, the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing reported that homes in its market profile were spending an average of 231 days on market and luxury properties in all markets it tracks were averaging 215 days on market at the end of the year, a year-long high.
During the spring buying season, luxury homes were selling much faster. Days on market for luxury homes fell to 120 days, down from 155 days at the outset of the buying season in February.
Luxury agents and brokers around the country report brisk activity up to the onset of the holiday season, an indication that demand is strong. Tighter inventories are not translating into higher prices at the million dollar plus end of the spectrum, however.
In the Hamptons, Town and Country Realty reports the greatest gain in third quarter activity was in the $3.5 million to $4.99 million price range and the only price range to see a statistical decline was the $5 million to $9.9 million range. Total number of sales in the Hamptons was up 17 percent.
Luxury home sales in the Denver metro area almost doubled in October compared to October 2011, according to John Rebchook of Inside Real Estate News, citing a report by Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. However, the median sale price $1.31 million of a luxury home closed last month in the Denver market was off 4.8 percent from October 2011 and 3.9 percent from September. Homes also sold at a much faster pace year over year and sellers on average received a higher percentage of their asking price.
In Lake Tahoe, homes under and over the million-dollar mark both experienced significant increases in sales (37 and 33 percent, respectively) while overall prices fell around the lake. The median price of a home in Lake Tahoe is $330,000 (down 11 percent) and the average price is $538,289 (down 15 percent), according to Chase international.
Overall there was a 49 percent quarter-over-quarter and 39 percent year-over-year improvement in Lake Tahoe-area home sales, according to Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate. In the third quarter, 122 homes changed hands, up from 82 homes sold in the second quarter and 88 homes sold in last year’s third quarter. In another sign the market is recovering, the average number of days a home was on the market before attracting a contract to purchase declined from 162 days a year ago to 101 days in this year’s third quarter.
In the greater Truckee area, the median price of a single-family detached home declined slightly from $451,129 in the second quarter to $450,083 in the third quarter, although it was up 3 percent from $437,261 in the third quarter of last year as the local real estate market continued to show signs of a recovery. Locally, a change in the mix of homes sold boosted the median sales price in Donner Lake by 50 percent year over year while low inventory pushed sales prices slightly higher in the Town of Truckee (+12% for the quarter and +7% for the year) and the Glenshire Area (+4 percent for the quarter and +3% compared with a year ago).
In Atlanta, while most of the real estate market is enjoying a nice rebound this year, luxury real estate is going backward. Sales of $2 million-plus single family detached resale homes are down 33 percent from 2011 (33 sales in 2012 vs. 49 during first 10 months of 2011) while sales of $3 million plus homes are down 67 percent (5 sales in 2012 vs. 15 in 2011). The average sales price for $2 million-plus homes is down 11 percent from 2011, while the average for $3 million-plus is up 1 percent. There are 112 single family detached new and resale homes in Buckhead currently on the market that are priced more than $2 million, which translates at the current rate of sale to a nearly four-year supply, according to Beacham and Company Realtors.
New York City is suffering from an acute lack of inventory throughout the sales marketplace, according to Warburg Realty. Foreign money is snapping up the high and mid-priced condominiums all over Manhattan. But the profound shortage of inventory which has developed in the co-op market defies expectations. Throughout the city, resident New Yorkers are hamstrung month after month in their new home searches. At $20 million, at $10 million, at $5 million, at $1 million – few new listings appear. The customers, hoping that there is still seasonality in the market ask, “Won’t there be a lot more inventory hitting the market in September?” Sadly, the answer was no. Many of these customers asked the same questions in April. There was no major spike in inventory in the spring and not much more in the fall. And we don’t anticipate one any time soon, at least not on the resale side, not even with the almost certain increase in the capital gains tax burden for sellers looming on the 2013 horizon.
November Employment Data | Waccabuc Real Estate
Widows Pushed Into Foreclosure by Mortgage Fine Print | Waccabuc Realtor
Ms. Bates, 70, is caught in a foreclosure trap that is ensnaring widows across America: she cannot get help lowering her payments until her name is added to the mortgage note, but the lender says she must be current on payments before that can happen.
“I keep praying,” said Ms. Bates, who is fighting with the bank to stay in the four-bedroom house.
Just as the housing market is recovering, a growing group of homeowners — widows over the age of 50 whose husbands alone were holders of the mortgage — are losing their homes to foreclosure because of a paperwork flaw that keeps them from obtaining loan modifications.
In the latest chapter of the foreclosure crisis, homeowners over 50 are falling into foreclosure at the fastest pace of any age group, according to nationwide data, in part because women are outliving their spouses and are unable to cope with cuts in their pensions, ballooning medical costs — and the fine print on their mortgages.
While there are no exact measures of how many widows have entered foreclosure, figures compiled by AARP show the rate of foreclosures among people over 50 increased by 23 percent from 2007 to 2011, resulting in 1.5 million foreclosures.
A few lenders have tweaked their procedures to navigate the problem, and housing advocates are petitioning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to devise guidelines for lenders in situations that involve surviving relatives. Banks say that while the volume of delinquent mortgages means that they need a blanket policy to cover all homeowners who are behind on their payments, they are willing to work closely with widows.
Still, interviews with elder-care advocates, housing lawyers and borrowers suggest that the problem is spreading fast, propelled by an aging population. Legal aid offices in California, Florida, Ohio and New York say it is among the top complaints from clients. Billy Howard, a consumer lawyer in Tampa, Fla., said he had more than two dozen cases involving widows, up from virtually none before 2007.
“These women are essentially invisible,” said Gladys Gerson, a lawyer for Coast to Coast Legal Aid of South Florida.
At first glance, the issue seems little more than a logistical headache. To stay in the home, and play slot game to earn and pay bills, the surviving spouse needs to take over the mortgage. But to do that, most banks require that the borrower assuming the mortgage be up-to-date on payments. Housing advocates say that their clients, especially if one spouse experienced a prolonged illness, often find they are already thousands of dollars behind.
“Surviving spouses are trapped without a clear way to preserve their home,” said Arabelle Malinis, a lawyer at Housing and Economic Rights Advocates in California.
The conundrum is pushing some widows into foreclosure by choking off a lifeline that could save their homes. As of 2011, 6 percent of loans held by people over 50 were delinquent, up from about 1 percent in 2007, according to a July study by AARP, an advocacy group for Americans over 50. The study, which housing lawyers say accurately describes the tide of foreclosures on seniors’ homes, analyzed mortgage data over a five-year period.
Part of the problem, according to Debra Whitman, AARP’s executive vice president for policy, is that older Americans are saving less and borrowing more. Debt for Americans ages 65 to 74 is outpacing any other group, according to the Federal Reserve.
Some help is on the way. JPMorgan Chase, for example, allows surviving relatives to complete a loan modification and mortgage assumption simultaneously. And the consumer bureau is finishing rules to provide tighter oversight of mortgage servicing companies, which collect payments from homeowners.
Housing advocates say most of their widowed clients still remain in their foreclosed homes.
The trouble for Ms. Bates, of Jacksonville, Fla., began after her husband Robert, a World War II veteran, died last February. Mr. Bates had obtained a trial loan modification but died before he could make the first payment. Determined to make good on the hard-won plan, Ms. Bates said she notified HSBC, the servicer, of her husband’s death and sent in a check for $1,125.47.
Ms. Bates said she was devastated when the check was returned, with a letter explaining the money could not be accepted because she was not on the mortgage. Ms. Bates still owes roughly $131,000 on the original $140,000 mortgage. HSBC declined to comment on the case, but said in a statement, “HSBC has a strong commitment to home preservation and regards foreclosure as a last resort.”
Complaints from widows about botched forms, unanswered calls and the peculiar frustration of being asked repeatedly by servicers for the same documents echo the concerns that culminated in a $26 billion settlement in February over other mortgage flaws with the country’s five largest mortgage servicers.
via nytimes.com
Mortgage rates barely budge from record lows | Waccabuc NY Homes
After hitting record lows last week, mortgage rates have stayed tanked amid growing concerns that lawmakers won’t reach a compromise to avoid a “fiscal cliff” of automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to take place next year, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey.Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.32 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending Nov. 29, up from 3.31 percent last week but down from 4.00 percent a year ago. Last week’s rate was a new record in Freddie Mac records dating to 1971.
For 15-year fixed-rate loans, rates averaged 2.64 percent with an average 0.6 point, up from 2.63 percent last week but down from 3.30 percent a year ago. Last week’s rate was a record in records dating to 1991.
Rates on five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) loans averaged 2.72 percent with an average 0.6 point, down from 2.74 percent last week and 2.90 percent a year ago. Rates on five-year ARM loans hit a low in records dating to 2005 of 2.69 percent during the week ending July 19.
For one-year Treasury-indexed ARM loans, rates averaged 2.56 percent with an average 0.5 point, unchanged from last week but down from 2.78 percent a year ago. Rates on one-year ARM loans hit a low in records dating to 1984 of 2.55 percent during the week ending Nov. 15.
A separate survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed applications for purchase mortgages were up 3 percent during the week ending Nov. 23 compared to the week before. The survey, which included an adjustment for the Thanksgiving holiday, showed purchase loan demand up 8 percent from a year ago.
A Federal Reserve report published Wednesday summarizing commentary on current economic conditions around the country found markets for single-family homes improving in 10 of 12 Federal Reserve Districts. Boston and Philadelphia were the exceptions.
The “Beige Book” report — based on reports from Federal Reserve Bank and branch directors, and interviews with business contacts, economists, market experts, and other sources — found sales growth generally slowed for both the condominium and single-family home markets in the Boston District.
Fed officials in the Philadelphia District said their sources noted that October “began as a disappointing month for some Realtors, only to be punctuated by Hurricane Sandy.”
Reports from the New York District were “mixed but generally firm prior to the storm. Selling prices were steady or rising.”
Declining or tight inventories were reported in Boston, New York, Richmond, Atlanta, Kansas City, and Dallas.
Single-family housing starts were up in the Cleveland District, while builders in the Richmond District reported “significant pent-up demand in the first-time buyer segment.
In the Atlanta District, existing home sales were up slightly compared to a year ago, with investors more active in Florida than in the rest of the District.
Residential construction of single- and multifamily homes increased at a slow but steady pace in the Chicago District, while reports from the Minneapolis District indicated that “segments of construction and real estate were growing at a double-digit clip.”
Real estate activity was characterized as “brisk” by the Kansas City District, with a solid rise in home sales reducing inventories.
The St. Louis District reported continued improvement in residential real estate market conditions.
In the Dallas District, single-family housing activity remained strong, with both new and existing home sales up.
Demand for homes continued to strengthen in the San Francisco District, and sustained growth in home sales has spurred new home construction.
via inman.com
4 Ways a Real Estate CRM Will Help You Get More Organized | Waccabuc Real Estate
Thinking about investing in a customer relationship management (CRM) software? If you are, now is the time to get on board. Here’s why: the U.S. real estate market is finally making a comeback after years in decline. In fact, there are reports that U.S. housing rebounded to a four year high last month. There are less vacant homes on the market and applications for building permits are increasing
If you’re still a REALTOR®, you’ve lived through some tough times. Now is the time to prepare yourself for more business and make sure that you’re able to take it on while staying 100% organized and in-control.
In addition to helping you remain in touch with clients, nurture your leads, and build relationships with your sphere, a real estate CRM is absolutely instrumental to getting more organized. Below are four ways you can use your CRM to stay both proactive, organized, and in-control:
1. Listing and Closing Activity Plans
A good real estate CRM will come with pre-designed listing and closing Activity Plans. These plans will help you manage every step in the process of listing and closing a home so nothing ever falls through the cracks.
2. Transaction Management
Part of running a completely organized business is having the ability to manage all of your transactions, transaction documents, showings, and third parties in one place. And this is exactly what a top-notch CRM will let you do. Use your CRM to generate service reports, schedule appointment and task reminders, list property details, record closing and other dates, manage offers, and track commissions.
3. Drip Email Marketing
Staying in touch with clients and prospects and building long-term relationships with them is the impetus that’ll spark referrals and repeat business. Your CRM should have a number of pre-designed marketing campaigns created you. Simply select the campaign that works best for a particular contact or group and your CRM will send emails out automatically at various time intervals. Drip email marketing campaigns will help you automate some of your marketing, which means that while you’re busy with a client on the road, you’re also marketing to hot leads and staying in touch with past clients at the same time.
4. Integrated Calendar and Task List
Never underestimate the power of a calendar and task list in helping with personal organization. One of the benefits of a good CRM is that you don’t have to rely on your memory. Use the system for any reminders or notifications that you want to receive (for example, you may want the system to remind you to call your clients on their birthday or home purchase anniversary date). As soon as you log into your CRM, take a look at your calendar and tasks for the day so you’re aware of your appointments and what needs to be done.
Choose a system that automatically and wirelessly syncs with the built-in calendar in your smartphone. That’s an important plus because it gives you the opportunity to add and view appointments on the road and keep your CRM constantly up-to-date.
A good, easy to use CRM will play a big role in helping you run a more organized and productive business. As the real estate market is coming back to life, adopting a CRM into your business is more important now than ever.
via next.inman.com
Wells Fargo mortgage domination not due to higher origination volume: FBR | Waccabuc Real Estate
via housingwire.com
Choosing the right light bulb | Waccabuc NY Realtor
In the world of home improvement products, it used to be that one of the things you could count on for consistency year after year was the light bulb. Little changed since its invention, so it was a product that you didn’t really have to give much thought to.
No longer. Today, there’s a lot of confusion surrounding this simple staple of the American household. Are 100-watt bulbs banned? Are those twisty bulbs dangerous? Can you use these new bulbs with a dimmer? Aren’t the new bulbs really expensive? There are lots of questions and lots of confusing answers, so let’s try to clear up what we can.
Incandescent bulbs
Incandescent bulbs are the traditional household light bulb. They consume electricity, which is measured in watts, and give off light, which is measured in lumens. However, most of the electricity they consume is actually given off as heat, so these bulbs have never been particularly energy efficient.
Incandescent bulbs haven’t technically been “banned.” What’s happened is that new energy efficiency standards have been put into place, which simply means that the bulbs now need to consume less electricity for same amount of lumens produced.
So the traditional 100-watt light bulb is, in essence, a thing of the past. It’s being replaced by a bulb that produces the same amount of light, but uses about 72 watts. Since that translates to money in your pocket in the form of energy savings, it’s not a bad thing. Similar wattage-to-lumen reductions are set to phase in for other bulbs over time, but given the ongoing mess in Washington, those dates are a congressional moving target.
Halogen bulbs
Halogen bulbs, also called energy-saving bulbs, are incandescent light bulbs that have a capsule inside that holds halogen gas around the filament, which increases the efficiency of the bulb. Halogen bulbs are a little more expensive to buy initially, but their energy efficiency increases by about 25 percent over a standard incandescent bulb, and they can last up to three times as long.
Another advantage to halogen bulbs is their color rendition, which is the ability of a light source to render the colors of an object similar to the way sunlight does. This makes them a great choice for many desk and task light applications. Halogen bulbs can also be used with dimmers.
Compact fluorescent bulbs
Compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs, are the increasingly familiar “curly tube” light bulb. Once again, they’re more expensive to purchase initially than a standard incandescent bulb, but their increasing popularity and availability is bringing prices down.
CFL bulbs uses about a quarter of the energy that a standard bulb uses to produce the same number of lumens, so that’s a pretty good savings. They’re estimated to last about 10 times as long, so that offsets the somewhat higher initial cost; in fact, the Department of Energy estimates that a typical CFL will pay for itself in less than nine months.
As CFLs have become more popular, they’ve become available in a range of colors that weren’t available when they were first introduced. You can now get CFLs with warm, yellow tones, as well as bulbs that are encased in an outer cover that help diffuse the light better — and which, coincidentally, also makes them look much more like a traditional light bulb. Some CFLs can also be used with a dimmer switch, but be sure that you verify that on the package when you buy it.
CFLs do contain a small amount of mercury, as do all fluorescent bulbs. When they burn out, they shouldn’t be disposed of with the regular trash. Instead, they need to be properly recycled, which is something that a growing number of retailers are doing at no charge.
LED bulbs
The final type of bulb you want to be aware of is the light-emitting diode, or LED. These bulbs are semiconductors that convert electricity into light. They’re actually in the early stages of development at this point, so they’re still pretty expensive. However, many people think that these bulbs have a tremendous amount of potential, and represent the wave of the future in residential and commercial lighting. As such, their prices should begin coming down.
LED bulbs use only about 25 percent of the energy that a conventional bulb does, but their real advantage is in their life span. An LED bulb is estimated to last about 25 times longer than a conventional bulb, so even with the high initial cost, their use may still make good economic sense for applications where bulbs are difficult to access for replacement.
via inman.com
Will 2013 Be the Time for Home Buyers to Jump In? | Waccabuc Real Estate
via online.wsj.com