Mortgage rates have never been lower, but they most certainly have been higher.
The latest infographic provided by Loans.org takes loan rates back in time from the last decade, to the ’90s and even back to hte ’80s — these efforts that would make the Doc and Marty McFly proud.
For instance in 2013, a homeowner pays $1,347.13 a month for a four bedroom and three bathroom home.
But if you take the same home and go back to 2008 when the Great Recession begins, the average interest rate is 6.03% and your monthly payment would’ve been $1,503.70.
When you respond to these leads with the only form of contact they usually give you, email, are they opening your responses?
Do you even know if they opened your email or clicked any links? If not, go here first.
Now we have that out of the way, lets talk about how to increase that open rate.
I presented at the Agent Reboot conference in Seattle and had the opportunity to watchDarin Persinger from Productivity Junkies talk a bit about leads and how to respond to them. He explained the process of how a consumer searches on Realtor.com and connects with the site. That consumer then fills out a form and is then presented with an email from “Kelly Agent”, which might not ever get read. Why you ask? Watch the video below to find out and learn what to do to overcome this dilemma.
From 2008 to 2011, renters’ housing costs increased almost 6%, while their income fell 3.2% according to the Center for Housing Policy. More than 26% of working renters spent at least half their income on housing in 2011, up from about 23% in 2008, writes Bloomberg Businessweek.
One reason: There just aren’t enough affordable rental units to go around. In 2010, there were 5.1 million more low-income families than there were affordable units.
The chief US economist for Deutsche Bank, Joseph LaVorgna, tweeted some great news a little while ago.
He push-posted an economic review of the housing industry that shows the recovery is doing even better than originally thought:
“We believe investors still do not fully appreciate the direct positive effects a rejuvenated housing sector will have on the economic outlook,” according to the report LaVorgna is tweeting about.
“When combing through the GDP accounts, we estimate that total housing-related spending — beyond just residential construction — accounts for a much larger share of the economy than some market participants currently may believe,” the analysts write.
So the outlook remains bright, as HousingWire yesterday reported, but it’s still not as good as it once was, Deutsche Bank notes.
This 50½-acre property includes a 12-bedroom Victorian, French-renaissance mansion, 4,000 feet of water frontage on Long Island Sound and two offshore islands, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The listing marks the latest test of the ultra-high-end property market, which has seen several record-setting sales in recent years. Pricing in this stratosphere is an imprecise science, however, and it can be difficult for sellers to predict whether a nine-figure listing will lead to a nine-figure sale.
American Banker is reporting that Wells Fargo($39.88 0.62%) andCitigroup($51.45 0.84%) ‘halted’ most of their foreclosure sales in several states after evaluating the process against the backdrop of new guidance from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Reporters Jeff Horwitz and Kate Berry wrote that within two weeks of the OCC’s release of new guidance on minimum standards for foreclosure sales, Wells, Citi and JPMorgan ‘all but stopped’ foreclosure sales.
Since then, JPMorgan has picked them back up again.
A video is never guaranteed to go viral, but a few factors make it significantly more likely.
In the first few months of 2013, viral videos covered all kinds of topics: a serious look at female self-esteem, a silly competition between two Star Trek actors, and more. But according to Brian Shin, CEO of video analytics service Visible Measures, these and most other viral videos share at least two things in common: “discussability” and “relatability.”
For a video to be “discussable,” it usually features something shocking or surprising, which compels viewers to share it with others. Likewise, if a video contains something deeply human to which we can relate — even if it’s cuddling cats — we’re more likely to share it out. The two factors often go together.
We chatted with a couple viral video experts to learn what made these clips the biggest hits of the year, so far.
Dove Experiment
Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” video is by far the most popular video of 2013 to date, with nearly 54 million views on YouTube and about 68 million views across the web, according to data from Visible Measures. That’s more impressive considering the video was released only a month ago.
Shin believes a few factors played into this video’s success. It’s deeply human, it sparked multiple spin-offs and it shares an incredibly powerful and positive message about the way women see their bodies, which people felt compelled to share.
“The message is something you really can’t be against,” he says. “That’s something everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and feel good about. It’s a message that can’t be not shared.”
Jeff Gordon Prank
Pepsi and others have pulled pranks in their ads, but this video was in a league of its own. Jeff Gordon dresses in disguise to take a car salesman for a wild ride.
“‘Prankverts,’ in which brands create their own stunts involving supposedly innocent members of the public, have been a really hot trend this year,” says David Waterhouse, global head of content and PR at Unruly Media, a video marketing company. “And the most successful of these new wave of commercials is Pepsi ‘Test Drive.'”
The secret sauce behind the video’s success, according to Waterhouse, is that it elicited so many different emotional reactions for viewers. “For most ‘prankverts’, the most common emotional responses are ‘hilarity’ and ‘surprise,'” he says. “However, when we tested ‘Test Drive,’ we found that it went one step further by adding ‘exhilaration’ into the mix. That meant, even if you didn’t find it funny or particularly surprising, you could still be exhilarated by the intense action and the awesome driving skills.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Waterhouse notes there was also a debate about whether the car salesman in the video was aware of the prank or not. That increased the number of people talking about and watching the video.
Harlem Shake
For a few weeks, the “Harlem Shake” was almost inescapable. Waterhouse says 40,000 “Harlem Shake” videos released in the first 11 days after the meme exploded; people viewed them 175 million times, collectively.
The reason for this success, according to Waterhouse, is because it was “so easy to replicate. It’s short, has a very easy structure to follow and a catchy song intro that makes it instantly recognizable,” he says. “Its simplicity is the cornerstone of its success.”
The Maker version of the “Harlem Shake,” seen above, was the most popular take on the meme early on, according to data from YouTube. Shin suggests this was a combination of good timing — it was one of the earlier videos in the meme — and the fact that it served as an inspiration for many of the videos that came after.
To learn how mobile marketing and social connect, I interview Jamie Turner for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.
It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.
The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).
In this episode, I interview Jamie Turner, co-author of the book Go Mobile. His blog, the 60 Second Marketer is ranked as one of the top 10 marketing blogs by Social Media Examiner. He also runs a social media and mobile marketing agency called 60 Second Communications.
Jamie shares how to start with mobile marketing and why you should pay more attention to mobile customers.
You’ll learn what tools to use and the difference between mobile websites and mobile apps.
Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!
Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:
Mobile Marketing
Why marketers should pay more attention to mobile customers
Jamie states that 15-50% of the people who visit your website come in from a mobile device and this number will continue to grow.
When consumers visit your website from a mobile device, you need to be there to meet them, understand mobile marketing and know how to connect with customers on mobile.
You’ll have to learn how to use mobile, as it’s a way to build a bridge between you and your customer.
Make sure you’re mobile-ready.
You’ll discover how more people check prices on their mobile devices while shopping and what you need to provide them to make sure they buy from you.
And you’ll hear that when people buy a product on mobile devices, particularly tablet computers, their total ticket price is typically higher than it is via a desktop computer.
It’s important to be mobile-ready—not only for B2C but for B2B too.
Listen to the show to find out how many people bought a virtual ticket on a smartphone while attending Social Media Marketing World.
Is there a social media connection when it comes to mobile marketing?
Jamie sees email as a social media tool. Sixty-seven percent of all “C-level” executives check their emails from their mobile devices. The better-known tools being LinkedIn,Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
We all need mobile websites. Remember when consumers visit your site, one of the prominent things you want to do is give them the ability to connect with you on social media platforms from their mobile device.
