4realz.net

I was having a hard time deciding if I should post this story on RCG or 4realz.net, because it would work on both sites…

(Not Just) another Seattleite rudely introduced to city’s vigilant jaywalking enforcement… It’s David Gibbons:

[NOTE: we had a wonderful show and you can listen to the entire episode at the bottom of this post!]

This week were going to cover the obviously hot topic of the effect of the actions taken by the government in bailing out and/or helping secure IndyMac, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae will affect the real estate industry.

This week’s guest is Lawrence Yun and as the chief economist for the National Association of REALTORS, Lawrence is sure to bring an incredibly interesting perspective.  He’s constantly traveling around the country talking with people about their local markets… and whenever he’s stopped by real estate technology circles, like trips to Portland and Virginia, he’s impressed the locals tremendously.

As always, you can get information on how to (1) listen to the call live, (2) take part in the live chat and potentially take part in the conversation by following the (relatively simple) information on the 4realz Roundtable TalkShoe page.  My guess is that this will be one of the more popular shows yet, so I’ll likely only be taking live callers based on folks who ask interesting questions in the chat room!

Also, in order to better accommodate Lawrence’s schedule, I’m moving the call to one hour later than usual.   The show will be on Thursday, July 17, at 5pm PST (8PM EST).     I definitely hope you can join us for a conversation on this timely topic!

UPDATE #1:

What an great show.   Thanks so much to everyone who took part!

Jonathan Miller, Jillayne Schlicke and Rhonda Porter really helped provide an excellent base for a roundtable discussion with Lawrence.   In our one hour conversation we covered so much ground… and I only wish I had the bandwidth to transcribe the whole thing (or even take better notes during the conversation!).

Nonetheless, we covered looked at how the real estate market would be affected by issues such as banks bailouts, freddie/fannie mac troubles, isues with jumbo loans, REOs, consumer confidence, government actions, sustainable housing, inflation, and much more!   If you’re interested in getting an in-depth look at the real estate market and where things are headed, then you can listen to the entire show right here:

UPDATE #2:

There are great conversations going on about this topic on both Rain City Guide and ActiveRain. Also thanks to Jim Duncan, Ardell DellaLoggia, Jonathan Miller, Rhonda Porter and Tom Royce for helping to spread the word!

…genius.

… (or for that matter anywhere), do something about it immediately if not sooner.”

(h/t UrbanDigs)

UPDATE:

Do you have questions about how the actions by the FDIC will affect you as a home owner?  Join us in a conversation with the Chief Economist for the National Assocation of REALTORS on the next 4realz Roundtable.

it launched. That’s big money - so somebody definitely thinks there’s a payoff somewhere to be had. The only question is from where?“

I just got question in an email from a real estate agent, and I figured my answer could probably help ore than a few people.

“I have been on Flickr and found some great photos from my area.  How do I know if these pictures are the ‘creative customs’ license?  Can I just use them?

From what I’ve seen work in practice, there are two good options to know if you can use a Flickr photo in your blog post:

1. Someone has uploaded and licensed their photo on Flickr under a creative commons license.
2. Someone on Flickr has allowed other members to “blog” their photo, which works regardless of the license they set for the photo.

Here’s how to work each option:

Option #1:
On the bottom right panel on the page of any photo, there is a section that describes the “permissions” for the photo. If something is creative commons, then the text will say “some rights reserved” and links to a creative commons license.  These are photos you can use as long as you give attribution back to the photographer by providing a link to the Flickr page with the photo.

If it is *not* creative commons then it will say “All Right Reserved”, and you should avoid using these photos on your blog.

Here’s an example of a photo that uses a creative commons license, and here is an example of a photo where all the rights are reserved.

Also, Flickr makes it easy to search ONLY creative common licensed photos by using their advanced search and checking the boxes at the bottom of the page.

Option #2:
If you are logged in to the service (and only if you’re logged in), then Flickr makes it easy to tell if someone won’t mind if you blog their photos.  All you have to look for is the text above the photo that says “blog this”.  If someone include the “blog this” button above the photo, then it means they’ve agreed to let any Flickr member use their photo in a blog post, regardless of the license they put on the photo.   Here’s an example of that type of button:

And here is what a photo will look like if you use Flickr’s “blog this” tools:

Grin., originally uploaded by :. G l o r i a .:.

[Update: you can now listen to the show below]

I’m downright excited about today’s show!

The plan is to dive into how the Cuomo/Fannie Mae/OCC appraisal rule changes are going to change the mortgage brokerage industry…. and affect real estate professionals in general!

So far, I’ve confirmed that Jonathan Miller of the Matrix will be joining us in addition to the usual suspects at the Roundtable!   I’m excited and hope you’ll follow this link at 1pm today to join the conversation!

UPDATE:

What a great conversation!   We had Jonathan Miller, Rhonda Porter and Jessie Beaudoin at the roundtable today along with a great crew of people listening in and chatting.

Just some of the topics we discussed included (1) an overview of the new regulations, (2) how the changes will affect loan originators and (3) what types of policies should we be looking at to really fix the problems within this segment of the industry.

Thanks again everyone for taking part.  For everyone else, you can listen to the show here:

…Bloggers (thank you TechCrunch for the story).   And no one in the real estate space was picked.  

But it did remind me to check and confirm that Google still thinks RCG has the sexiest real estate agents.

[Note:   The DeepDive conversation is now posted at the bottom of this article!]

Join me next week on Wednesday (7/9) at 1pm PST when I get a chance to interview the organizers of RE BarCamp on why they are putting this event together and what they hope to accomplish!

RE BarCamp

So, who am I going to grill?   Andy Kaufman, Brad Coy, Todd Carpenter and Jay Thompson have all confirmed that they’ll be on the call.  It’s a great group of people, so I’m positive it will not only be fun, but we’re likely to cover a lot of ground including:

• What is BarCamp?   And what is going to happen there that won’t happen at RE Connect?
• What type of person do you think will get the most value out of RE BarCamp?
• If someone wants to help you guys organize, how should they get involved?

But I also want to include your questions, so feel free to log into the chat or call into the show just like the typical 4realz Roundtable…

However, what’s up with the name: 4realz DeepDive?

Ever since I started doing the 4realz Roundtables, I’ve wanted to have a channel to talk more specifically about individual products (and especially product launches) with company executives, or in this case, talk about events with event organizers.

On a DeepDive conversation, I’m going to limit the number of guests who are “on air” the entire show to just me and the official guests.  However, using a format more standard in the radio industry, I’m plan to unmute listeners if they have specific questions they want to ask people on the show!   No doubt that this format is just an experiment and you, the listeners, will be the judge if it works or not! 

By the way, I’ve been doing something similar, where I interview just one person per show, on Rain City Radio for the past few weeks, and I can see how that format could really compliment the 4realz Roundtable discussions!

Also worth noting…

At the request of more than a few people from the East Coast, I’m going to try a new time slot for next week’s 4realz Roundtable… (That’s right, there’s going to be 2 shows next week: a Roundtable and a DeepDive!) Next week’s roundtable discussion will be on the usual day (Thursday), but at a new time (1pm PST).

And next week should be great as we’re going to cover how the Cuomo/Fannie Mae/OCC appraisal rule changes are going to change the mortgage brokerage industry.   This is a topic that was suggested to me by two people after the very first roundtable on the DOJ/NAR settlement conversation, so I’m glad that we get to make this happen!   I’ve already confirmed Jonathan Miller of the Matrix as a guest on the show, so i know it is sure to be both interesting and informative.

UPDATE:

You can listen to this great conversation here:

Some of the details:

• Official Website: http://rebarcamp.com/
• Time: July 22nd (Tuesday before RE Connect), 9am registration. Event from 10am to 6pm.

You can help by volunteering to:

• Help set-up the room the night before (see RE BarCamp for details!)
• Help create an information factsheet for the event (ask Andy Kaufman for details!)

And if you’re planning to show up, it’s free, but they’re asking that you fill out the official RSVP which was only set up a few days ago!

I got an early tour of the next version of Localism and I like much of what I saw… It’s a clean design that will give real estate agents plenty of opportunities to promote themselves (including by buying and/or creating new local communities). My guess is that this release will be very popular within the ActiveRain community.

Here’s my main criticism: When I put my consumer hat on, the purpose of the site doesn’t jump out at me at first glance.  As a new user going to Twitter, I know what I’m suppose to do (i.e. answer the question: “what am I doing?”). As a new user going to Facebook, I know that I’m there to connect with friends and family.   With localism, I’m asked to “go hyper local”… but I’m honetly not sure what that means… and it’s not particularly compelling when I get there since, as a consumer, there’s not a lot of ways for me to interact on the site… yet.

So here’s the good news.   The ActiveRain team mentioned that (1) they did their SEO homework and they’re convinced these sites will rank really well (only time will tell) and (2) they’re working hard to add more consumer interaction points (text, photo and video upload for non-ActiveRain members).   Assuming that at least some of the communities starts to get some serious traffic and the agents involved start to get some leads from the site, then I think they’ll have another winner on their hands.

Best wishes Mary as you move on to new adventures.  And 1ParkPlace just got a lot more interesting.

…you have to make it go deep.”

Or does the line between SEO and social media just get more blurry?

(h/t G. Dewald of Union Street Media )

…Real Estate Shows.  It’s a tool that automatically turns a Real Estate Shows virtual tour into a video format that can be widely distributed on the internet. Jeff gave me the low-down on this project a little bit ago, and he convinced me that this was not an easy task to do right… But that he felt really good about the technology they were using to convert and compress the video.

I know that some would say that virtual tours aren’t video (they said it today during our roundtable on video), but by simply exporting their shows to video format, the Real Estate Shows team is opening up a ton of new distribution opportunities…

[Note: This turned out to be an awesome conversation...  You can see who participated in the call as well as listen to the conversation at the bottom of this post!]

On this week’s 4realz Roundtable, I’m really looking forward to discussing marketing with video… and in particular, how real estate agents are effectively using video to promote themselves, their communities and their listings.

My concept of video is pretty broad and includes virtual tours… Some of the companies I imagine we’ll cover include ways to market using YouTube, TurnHere, WellcomeMat, Real Estate Shows, Vimeo, MLBroadcast Vidlisting, and Utterz.

PLEASE NOTE:

Because I don’t want to butt the roundtable up too close to the forth of July weekend, I’m MOVED the time to Wednesday, July 2nd.    So, for this week only, please join us at 4pm on Wednesday for what should be a great Roundtable!  As always, the call in telephone number and links to the chat can be found on this page: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/20339

UPDATE:

We had such a great conversation!  I really want to thank all the people who joined up to take part in the conversation including:

• Todd Carpenter of Mariah
• Ian Watt
• Ted Mackel
• Christian Sterner of WellcomeMat
• Michael Price of MLBroadcast
• Morgan Brown of TurnHere
• Nashua VirtualTours

You can listen to the conversation here:

I look forward to living vicariously through your Parisian stories! 

[UPDATE: This edition of the 4realz Roundtable is now live and you can listen to it at the bottom of this post!]

As part of my hunt for new marketing tools for agents, I’d love to take on a relevant topic similar to how we took on tracking and analytics for agents last week.

With that in mind, I’m planning for Thursday’s discussion to focus on tech tools that help agents serve sellers better…. And here’s where you come in.   What types of technologies and/or tools should we cover?

Some thoughts that come to my mind include single property websites and listing syndication services… But I know there is more? What about tools that help agents get sellers to price properties more appropriately like Altos Research Reports?

I’d love to hear from you about the technology tools available to agents that can help them serve sellers better!   In particular agents, if there is some tricks or tips you’d be willing to share, I’d love to hear from you and potentially get you on the show!

Also of interest, I’ve started summarizing the relevant websites taken from our previous Roundtables on social networking, home valutions and analytics for agents within the Tool Shed!

UPDATE:

What an awesome crew we had on the call today:

• Kris Berg
• Jay Thompson
• Jim Duncan
• Ted Mackel
• Michael Price
• Mike Mueller
• Andy Kaufman

If you’re an agent looking to increase your knowledge on how to use simple technology tools to increase your business, here are just some of the tools that were mentioned in the podcast:

• Docusign. Kris: a religious experience…
• Point2Agent.  Jay: Robust listing syndication
• Altos.  Great reports
• Transaction Point. Kris: Great tool…. While Ted says Relay drives him crazy and he is almost better going paper.
• eFax #3 on the list of tools that Kris “couldn’t live without”
• Real Estate Shows is a great tool

Some great stuff!   Thanks again to everyone who took part!  For everyone else, you can listen to this edition of the 4realz Roundtable here:

or “Blogging is the answer!”?

Help us figure it out by adding your experience! Fill out the simple CREST survey from VAR!

And a few folks from the 4realz community got to test it out early.   My new “outside” blog is at http://tyr.activerain.com/, but if I was feeling really savvy, I would have given it my own domain name, (as in http://4realz-on-ar.com/ ).  It’s pretty cool that they offer this as a free service since even sites like wordpress.com, which has lowered the barrier pretty darn low, charges $10/year for this service.

My only real knock against the set-up so far is that the available “themes” are pretty limited and require that you put your photo in the right sidepanel… not exactly something I want, but it likely will appeal to agents.

As Brad says in this AR post, this service has been a long time in the making… And Brad might not know just how long considering Jon talks about being inspired to create this type of feature after attending one of my seminars from Feb ‘07 in this Sellsius blog post! 

(Also interesting in that it looks like Roberta Murphy probably coined the phrase “outside” blog in a follow up comment of that thread!  If you haven’t seen the thread recently, it’s definitely worth checking out.)

…hmmm… I can’t do it justice.   You just have to watch the video yourself.

…Charles Richey as he deals with his recently diagnozed Guillain-Barre Syndrome.  Max Chirkov is organizing a fundraising and looking for your help!

A few weeks ago I moved the Rain City Guide servers over to new servers.  Starting a few days before I moved the site over, I noticed a drop in the amount of traffic that coming to RCG as measured by Google Analytics:

The fact that it started a few days beforehand didn’t really surprise me since I had been having trouble with the host (hence the move!).

However, the huge drop that Google Analytics shows is almost entirely from a drop in search engine (think: Google) traffic:

It’s not pretty, but I figured it was a reality and just part of the consequences of moving the site from one server to another and I figured Google would hopefully start sending lots search traffic again over time.  But here’s where it gets weird.

The ONLY indication I have that our search traffic has decreased is Google Analytics… All other indications are that the traffic is just about the same.

For example, Quantcast total daily visits from the same time frame (which, just like Google Analytics, uses a bit of javascript I installed in the footer of the site):

Diving deeper into the search terms I can see that for terms we used to rank really well for, like [moving to Seattle], Google Analytics said we dropped to only one person visiting us from that search term yesterday:

But, I simply can’t believe that for two reasons:

1. The Rain City Guide post on Moving to Seattle is STILL the #1 result on Google for the term
2. WP-Stats (also using a bit of Java-script in the footer) says we got 32 views from that term yesterday which is a bit low, but closer to what I’d expect by showing up #1 under that particular term in google:

For those wondering, I didn’t touch the Google Analytics code when I moved servers. Nor did I install any caching or other plugins that would be related to this in any way that I can think of…

And finally, just to show you that the issue really is only related to search engine traffic, both the direct traffic and referring traffic have remained pretty consistent throughout this time period:

So finally…

My questions for the 4realz community:

• What is going on with Google Analytics?   Is it busted?  Any ideas on why it would only be picking up a small portion of the search terms that come to Rain City Guide?
• Or maybe you’d argue that RCG’s google search traffic really did drop off heavily…  But then wouldn’t you have expected us to stop ranking well in the usual phrases [agent recommendations], [Seattle real estate blog], etc.?

UPDATE:

After only 14 hours or so of a fix (thanks to an idea I had inspired by a comment below), the search engine traffic on RCG as measured by GA has had a nice bump:

(Notice the jump at the right of the chart… That’s today’s traffic from search engines)

At least for one of the WordPress blogs that I run, all evidence points to the fact that the existing tracking code went bust at some point in mid-May!   Obviously, if you’re also noticing that GA is measuring a drop in search engine traffic, as some others have mentioned in the comments, then try upgarding to the latest javascript code.

Today I was fortunate to interview a woman who has created a blog that has become a true resource for her community as part of a weekly podcast series I’m doing on Rain City Guide.    This woman spends hours and hours each day crafting posts about her community, everything from local events, new permits, “missing pets”, etc for the West Seattle community.

It’s become such a great community resource and so widely read that she’s been able to quit her day-job in order to blog about her community.   It’s a fascinating interview where she discusses many different issues around what makes her community special and I think well worth listening to for real estate professionals who want ideas for how to turn a blog into a dynamic, interesting and local neighborhood resources.

However, you’ll may also walk away thinking, “I need to sell real estate and that sounds so time consuming,” which is why I say listen just for ideas.  She’s clearly tapped into something that works for her community… and I think it is well worth a listen:

…links are where it’s at.”