By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
In spite of the well-known woes of the commercial real estate market today, the watchword among practitioners in this space seems to be “opportunity.” That word came up time and again in a “Women in Commercial Real Estate” meeting I attended on Wednesday.
The event featured a panel of leaders in the commercial space: Gail Lissner, vice president of Appraisal Research Counselors; Victoria Noonan, regional leasing director of commercial development firm Tishman Speyer’s Chicago portfolio; and Goldie B. Wolfe Miller, one of the top commercial real estate brokers in the country. The event was hosted by the Chicago Association of REALTORS®, the Women’s Council of REALTORS®, and the Goldie B. Wolfe Miller Women Leaders in Real Estate Initiative.
Jim Darrow, chair of the Chicago Commercial Forum and a third-generation practitioner, introduced the panelists and offered a brief overview of the commercial market. Here’s an overview some of the major challenges they said commercial brokers, developers, and property managers are facing today: Continue reading »
What does it mean to be a REALTOR®? What are the benefits to you? What are the benefits to the buyers and sellers you work with?
You can tell the National Association of REALTORS® how membership has made a difference to you, your clients, and your community. In return, you’ll be mailed a FREE “I LOVE Being a REALTOR®” pin (limit two per member, while supplies last). Your story will also be posted on the “Gallery,” and you’ll be invited to share your story through a unique link on your Facebook and Twitter pages, and by e-mail, sharing with others the expertise and value being a REALTOR® brings to them.
For more details and to share your story, visit www.TheHeartoftheMarket.com.
A couple of months ago, we published a series of on-the-scene posts from 2007 Good Neighbor Award winner Pat Moore, who was assisting with relief efforts in Haiti after a devastating succession of earthquakes sparked a humanitarian crisis in that country. Moore recently traveled there again to continue his work. Although much of the media coverage of Haiti’s plight has faded, the need for help has not, he says. Here is the first part of his account from his latest trip:
Bon Repos, Haiti — April 14, 2010
I have never seen it rain the way it did last night. Because of the heavy cloud cover, there was no Internet service. Yesterday we dropped 300 lbs. of rice and 4 gallons of cooking oil to the orphanage next door. Most of the day was planning the medical help in the tent cities, filling pill bottles, and packing the medical bag. The site where most bodies were buried is now used as the new dump. All of those unknown souls buried under a ton of trash. We found a new tent city — the worst I have ever seen — on the way to the dump. Shacks made out of plastic and cardboard. No real shelter for anyone, and the place is full of kids. Continue reading »
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
In today’s real estate market, in which money and credit are tight and many consumers are still uncertain about their financial future, you (and by “you” I mean “me”) would probably think the vacation-home market would be really soft. But you (again, actually me) would be wrong.
As it turns out, vacation-home sales actually grew at a faster rate than those of primary residences between 2008 and 2009 (7.9 percent to 7.1 percent, respectively). That’s according to the National Association of REALTORS®’ Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey, which was released at the end of last month. (It’s also worth noting that investment homes did not fare nearly as well, with sales dipping nearly 16 percent between 2008 and 2009.)
“The typical vacation-home buyer is making a lifestyle choice, with nine out of 10 saying they intend to use the property for vacations or as a family retreat,” Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said of the finding.
Deb Howard, a Lake Tahoe-based practitioner and 2010 chair of NAR’s Resort and Second Home Committee, sees it that way too. “Typical buyers in this market are driven most often by a desire to make a quality-of-life investment,” she says. “They want something they can enjoy with their family, and something their family can inherit.” Continue reading »
By Robert Freedman, senior editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Are you still seeing valuations that don’t reflect your view of market value? Are appraisers still hesitant to take information from you or even answer your calls? Are the appraisers who set value still coming in from outside your geographic area? Are most appraisers getting their jobs from appraisal management companies (AMCs), whose fees, many appraisers say, cut too deeply into the appraiser’s bread and butter?
These are some of the questions we hope to get answered in a webinar we’re hosting next week with Mark Johnson, head of the country’s largest AMC, LSI, Inc., and other presenters.
It was roughly one year ago that the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) took effect. The product of an agreement on appraiser selection between the state of New York and the two secondary mortgage market companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the agreement had the force of national policy because Fannie and Freddie, with the OK of their regulator, applied it to all of the mortgages they handle.
By Robert Freedman, senior editor, REALTOR® magazine
About two weeks ago we ran a quick summary of what to expect now that health reform has passed. To fill in the details of that summary, I sat down with Marcia Salkin, NAR’s managing director for legislative policy, for a video interview.
Among the highlights of what she said:
Employer mandate. Few real estate brokerages will be subject to the requirement that employers either provide health insurance to their employees or pay into the health insurance exchange through which employees get coverage on their own. The lion’s share of brokerages are simply too small to be subject to the requirement.
By Erica Christoffer, Web Producer, REALTOR® Magazine
When it comes to search engine marketing, it’s all about reaching your target audience.
Real estate coach and self-proclaimed “SEO addict” Ben Kinney presented ways to drive traffic to your Web site at RainCamp, ActiveRain’s one-day social media and Web event in Chicago today.
Did you know that 93 percent of consumers are using search engines? “The other 7 percent just don’t know they are,” joked Kinney, co-author of Soci@l: Attract Friends, Followers and Connections to Your Business. What’s more telling, 75 percent don’t go past the first page of results, Kinney found. And search engine marketing firm iProspect reported that approximately 61 percent of Internet users believe organic results on the first page are more dependable than the paid ads.
Here are five tips to help you make the most of search engine rankings and climb the ladder of search results:
- Keep keywords at 2-4 percent per page: Search engine results are based on the words on the site’s page. Long-tail keyword searches — typically longer than three-word searches — consist of 80 percent of search traffic. Kinney says you should think about searches that make sense in your market. Then look at your Web site. Is that word or phrase you use to reach clients repeated at lease 2-4 percent of the time? For example, on Kinney’s Web site www.livebellingham.com, “Bellingham” has a keyword density of 2.46 percent. However, go over 4 percent and your site might be considered spam. “It has to be conversational,” Kinney says. Continue reading »
By Robert Freedman, senior editor, REALTOR® Magazine
It’s tempting to show new customers around neighborhoods you’ve selected because they would seem to fit them perfectly. But you do that at your peril. As you’ll see in this short video, stumbling into a situation in which your actions have the effect of steering, a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act, isn’t hard to do whenever you try to ingratiate yourself with customers by trying to do their thinking for them.
The key message in the video is that, before you start talking to a customer as a friend would to a friend, sharing your thoughts on what makes a neighborhood a good fit for them, stop yourself. The risk is that, by biasing their opinions about a neighborhood, your words could have the effect of steering.
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Google's Android: Interesting, but will it change the way you do business?
In a couple of weeks, we’re going to have a new reader poll on our home page that asks: What new technology will have the most transformative impact on the real estate industry in 2010?
Before we run that, we’d like to know which hardware or software products — either currently on the market or about to be — you think might change the way you do business. It can be something specific (like Apple’s iPad or Google’s Android) or broad (such as enhanced online maps). Let us know in the Comments section, or contact me at bsummerfield@realtors.org.
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