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RealBlogging Author's QuickGuide

Mel Aclaro — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:08:08 +0000

For RealBlogging Contributing Authors.

Last updated: February 22, 2008.

Another tool for vacated/foreclosed homes...

Mel Aclaro — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:01:22 +0000

... the "mosquito fish." (AKA: Gambusia Affinis.)

image courtesy: wikimedia commons

It can apparently eat up to 500 mosquito larvae a day and give birth to up to 60 little gambusians a month while surviving adequately in oxygen-depleted water. That is, environments similar to those stagnant swimming pools and back yard spas on properties left vacant in a foreclosure; great breeding grounds for mosquitos-borne diseases, like West Nile virus. (Source: WSJ.)

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"Heat maps" highlight the slump, but the housing crisis may be over...

Mel Aclaro — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:01:26 +0000

...These visuals (download here) from Ben Bernanke's "heat maps" show a striking picture of some of the hardest hit areas for mortgage delinquencies. I pulled out just one of those maps for display below, showing the change in mortgage delinquency from 2004 to 2007. What particularly jumps out is that almost all of California and Florida are caked in red. Others hard hit: Michigan, Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

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Redfin's upgrade now lists FSBOs with MLS listings... what's the deal?

Mel Aclaro — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:01:00 +0000

There's a bit of buzz about Redfin's recent site upgrade.

Live as of last Wednesday, the upgrade has added bank-owned foreclosures and FSBO listings to their inventory display.

The bit of the controversy comes the question of how they were able to get around the MLS co-mingling display issue; the FSBO listings are listed alongside those from the MLS. (Ref. 4.13 in MRMLS IDX policy... "Listings obtained through IDX must be displayed separately from listings obtained from other sources...")

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UN-believable! Nobody can be THAT naive...

Mel Aclaro — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:11:36 +0000

...or can they? It was hillarious reading the thread on real estate webmasters initiated by Mr. Ron Park. Mr. Park was miffed about the results of his $10,500 outlay to try and clone Redfin.

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Follow up article: Google Street View is it available in my area?

Mel Aclaro — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:01:54 +0000

It's a beautiful day today in Southern California. So, this post is a quickie and addresses a couple of questions I got on a previous article I wrote about Google's Street View, and which I've been meaning to post here on a slow, rainy day... (ahem).

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Foreclosure pets - silent victims. How you can help.

Mel Aclaro — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:35:47 +0000

I debated whether or not to post this article seeing how it isn't exactly one of those "strategic" or "tactical" articles we're used to seeing on this site. But I didn't debate too long. I figured it's important, I can write and I have one of those covetted RealBlogging Contributor's accounts. ;-)

You've probably seen some of the same sound bites and news stories I have about the other/silent victims in home foreclosures: abandoned pets.

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Searching content INSIDE audio and video

Mel Aclaro — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:01:00 +0000

As a developer of online media, one of the drawbacks I've always hated about placing media up on the web, such as videos, podcasts, webcasts, audio streams, and so forth is the hit I take in discoverability.

That is, the major search engines can't find any of the words that are spoken inside a video or podcast. Let's say, rather then typing this weblog entry, I instead decide to make it a v-log (video blog) entry. You get the picture? Same thing, by the way, for those nifty videos of your property listings, as well as any video testimonials you've placed on your web site, let alone if you're one of the growing number of agents who publish their own version of online talkshows. Nope. Can't find what you say.

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Opportunity-enablers: Streamlining the short sale process

Mel Aclaro — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:14:55 +0000

One of the challenges requiring some finesse in a short sale transaction is the process of getting a lender to tip their hand, so to speak, about the the minimum price they'd accept for a short sale. That, we know, is at least one source of frustration for buyers and agents alike.

Typically, in order to get the lender to even consider a short sale, the seller/borrower will need to have missed a couple of payments and a purchase offer has to be received and submitted to accompany the package. Then, it can be several weeks yet before the lender comes back with a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down."

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Google's "Street View," a double-edged sword

Mel Aclaro — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:43:22 +0000

In Google's perpetual march to catalog the world's information, they've been making headway in cataloging neighborhood images on their Street View service. For those who haven't heard, Street View is a perspective in Google's online map service. But, rather than serving up just a top-view from, say, a Thomas guide-type perspective, or the zoom-able view of a satellite image, Google has enlisted armies of specially configured cars.

(Courtesy: Xeni Jardin, BoingBoing)

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Short sale education comes online

Mel Aclaro — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:12:08 +0000

Can you explain to a distressed homeowner what their options are before they get to a point of receiving the notice of foreclosure sale?

It seems not an evening goes by nowadays without a TV interview showing an anxious homeowner sharing the confusion they experienced about the mortgage rate and terms at the time they bought the house that's now upside-down. Three to five years later, when the rates have adjusted, higher mortgage payments have become a reality and the specter of foreclosure looms on the horizon, it's not a stretch to imagine many distressed homeowners similarly confused about their options.

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What do real estate professionals feel about online training?

Mel Aclaro — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:34:51 +0000

A few months ago I read through my copy of ASTD's 2007 State of the Industry Report. ASTD is the American Society for Training and Development. So, before I raise your hopes about this being a summary of the real estate industry, I should quickly say the subject industry is training.

Not surprising, yet significant, is the continued increasing trends in online learning. Year-over-year growth rates of about 20%-30% were evidenced. The variance owes primarily to the types of technologies used (i.e., self-paced online, instructor-led online, networked, and so on). In any case, no matter how you slice it, that growth is pretty significant.

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Software that let's us make sense of our desktop -- coming soon?

Mel Aclaro — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:01:32 +0000

I have a messy desktop. It probably reveals something about my psyche that I just throw things around in a pile. Even with this mess, I'm still pretty good at finding things. And, on occasion I'll try to group and organize files in some logical way. Or (gasp) I might actually file them away in folders! What a concept.

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The "business of running" and "running a business."

Mel Aclaro — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:01:00 +0000

In "This is Harder Than I Thought" I love Cheri's analogy of the business of running to that of running a business.

As I was reading the blog post, a couple of other thoughts came to mind that I would add to Cheri's excellent points. What came to mind were also the importance of consistency and community.

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Managers: How often do you perform a "safety standown"?

Mel Aclaro — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:07:39 +0000

Real estate agents in my area were once again reminded this weekend in a very unfortunate way about dangers that lurk in this business. We found out this weekend the terrible news that one of our colleagues in another company was assaulted while showing vacant property. She was also stabbed multiple times and left for dead. The assailant was captured. The agent is recovering. But the consequences will remain for some time.

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Project listing presentations straight from your laptop or PDA.

Mel Aclaro — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:01:42 +0000

For those of you have moved away from the old flip-cover listing presentation slicks in favor of laptop-based listing presentations, you'll love this little device from Microvision.

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Advice for real estate agents: Quit!

Mel Aclaro — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:01:00 +0000

Yup. Quit. That's Seth Godin's "Plan A" advice for real estate agents to whom he keynoted at a recent Realtor conference. Quit. A little harsh, but I get it.

(Now play Jeopardy music... hmm... hmmm... hmmm... wait for some agents to quit...)

Okay, now. For the rest of you who remain, here's Plan B: Microspecialize. Become the expert in what you do in the world. (Where "world" can be defined with very tight boundaries around a tiny slice of the market.)

And to that, I'd also like to add the importance of defining a UVP.

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Introducing Jay Medley

Mel Aclaro — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:42:10 +0000

I just wanted to take a moment to introduce our newest contributing author to the RealBlogging community.

Jay Medley, RealtyU's Director of Corporate Markeitng will be joining us this week. Jay comes with over 13 years of operational management and marketing experience and has worked with over 50 companies in more than 30 industries to improve lead generation, lead conversion and overall marketing.

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Managing "Information 2.0" Overload

Mel Aclaro — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:38:37 +0000

I remember back in school when we had to do term papers, I'd have a hell of a time just trying to find information for the project. Going to the library was a pain in the butt because it was a research effort in itself just to find out how to find the material I wanted to find!

Now, with "Everything 2.0," my problems are a little different... I have too much information and really need help just trying to keep up with it all.

I can talk about managing e-mail but, no, we don't want to go there today...

Why RSS is Cool.

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Survey: Agents' use of online learning

Mel Aclaro — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:30:40 +0000

[Your help needed. Survey input - click here.]

The American Society for Training and Development reports that the use of technology to deliver training has consistently increased since 2001.

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Inman's loophole

Mel Aclaro — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:01:00 +0000

Brad Carroll, Founder of Dakno Marketing, a real estate web design firm posted this little gem about what he calls "Inman's SEO loophole."

Turns out, for each of the news stories Inman publishes, there're two links: one for site visitors and another for search engines. (One requires a login, the other...)

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Teens and Social Media

Mel Aclaro — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:10:00 +0000

The latest report from Pew Internet & American Life Project about Teens and Social Media is worth a read. I posted a link to the report over at the BusinessCasualBlog.

The Pew report struck me as a compelling read given trends I've reviewed in the 2008 Trends Report. Especially pages detailing with trends in The Youth of Today, Youth in Real Estate and Online Communities.

Some of the more interesting highlights include:

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Here's a crappy topic...

Mel Aclaro — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:57:45 +0000

How cool is your commode?

I enjoy Rachel's often brassy video productions about the real estate market in/around New York. Here's one that's a little tongue-and-cheek about the $$$$'s (note the four placeholders) some folks spend on, uh, "crappy" amenities for their real estate.

Don't know about you, but I'm now on a mission to compare/contrast porcelain potties for this weekend's property showings and open houses. ;-) (I do need a life...)

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Agents, agency, social networks and selling.

Mel Aclaro — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:10:00 +0000

A previous post here on RealBlogging offered an excerpt from an article at Broker Agent News authored by Michael Parker. (Ref. "What Every Agent Needs to Know about Blogging, Social Networking, RSS Feeds and SEO.")

I read Michael's article. I'd say his position on social networking seems evident given the four times he used the word "hoopla" to describe it. I respect Michael's thoughts on the matter, but I have a different take.

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Two-part podcast on 2008 Real Estate Trends

Mel Aclaro — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:44:07 +0000

Tim O'Keefe just left a comment on my previous post containing the three video snippets highlighting trends from the 2008 Real Estate Trends Report. Tim was kind enough to share a couple of podcasts in which he interviewed the author. The podcasts are in two parts and available here.

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