...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.

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...")

...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. 

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).

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.  

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. 

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." 

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)

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.

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

[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. 

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...)

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:

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...)

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.

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.

How can a virtual world be used to possibly benefit real estate businesses and learning venues in the real world?

That was the question in my head when, yesterday, after over a year of thinking about it, I became Nikko LeFavre. Nikko lives in the 3D virtual world called Second Life.

If you haven't heard about Second Life you're not alone, my wife had never heard of it and was fascinated. A nutshell explanation is that it's an online community in 3D. Depending on your membership level, you can buy virtual real estate -- ultimately with real dollars. (What a concept, huh?) Residents can also trade services, buy/sell commodities, develop land, auction property, and so on.