Overland Park Real Estate Information Source

Is this market leaving a sour taste in your mouth?

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:21:21 -0600

If this market is starting to leave a bitter taste in your mouth you might wanna check out these fellow friends who have it even worse off then yourself. If this doesn't brighten up your mood then well heck you need some more serious help possible a 1LB bar of Chocolate... ;-)

19 | Hilarious Photos at JibJab | Hilarious Jokes at JibJab

Please post any other great silly photos in the comments if you feel so inclined. Hope you got a bit of a laugh and releaved some stress, I'm about to go try a lemon myself and see if I can get that much entertainment out of it ;-)

Pagerank Update went through two days ago.... And the verdic is...

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:51:33 -0500

This morning brings news from around the web of losses to the Google Toolbar PageRank (the little green pixels displayed in the toolbar) for a myriad of sites. The best coverage I've seen comes from Andy Beard, as well as SEJournal and SELand (which has a comprehensive list of sites discussing the update).

If you didn't know already PR IS USELESS!!! ;-)

Seriously PR is just a pretty graphic for entertainment and now that is basically officially proven with the help of the lastest PR updates. Some of the largest websites ON THE INTERNET had their PR mostly slashed in HALF!...

I've gone through many of the threads and tried to pull together an accounting of websites that have been "reportedly" affected by the update. Hopefully, by collecting this data, and combining it with reports in the comments, we can have a relatively comprehensive view of the landscape and make educated guesses and hypotheses as to the root causes:

www.autoblog.com PR6 > PR4
www.forbes.com PR7 > PR5
www.engadget.com PR7 > PR5
www.problogger.net PR6 > PR4
www.copyblogger.com PR6 > PR4
www.joystiq.com PR6 > PR4
www.tuaw.com PR6 > PR4
www.searchengineguide.com PR7 > PR4
www.seroundtable.com PR7 > PR4
www.searchenginejournal.com PR7 > PR4
www.johnchow.com PR6 > PR4
www.quickonlinetips.com/PR6 > PR3
weblogtoolscollection.com PR6 > PR4
andybeard.eu PR5 > PR3
www.volodymyrzablotskyy.com PR4 > PR2
daily.stanford.edu PR9 > PR5
www.thecrimson.com PR8 > PR4
www.statcounter.com PR9 > PR6
www.washingtonpost.com PR8 > PR5
www.blogherald.com PR7 > PR4
www.seopedia.org PR6 > PR5
weblogtoolscollection.com PR6 > PR4
www.masternewmedia.org PR7 > PR4
www.sfgate.com PR7 > PR5
www.suntimes.com PR7 > PR5
www.seo-scoop.com PR6 > PR3
spap-oop.blogspot.com PR5 > PR4
Onemansblog.com PR8 > PR5

Let me get that branch for you...

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:14:41 -0500

This was just to funny to pass up and though I would share it with everyone whos helped a friend or even a client before and it just doesn't always turn out how you thought it might :-P
Also a reminder of all those great family bonding moments not always going how we try to plan them out. :-P

Cutting Down A Tree Branch - Watch more free videos

You can copy my ideas - But Good Luck Trying to get my Results!

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 02:18:16 -0500

As Braveheart put it so nicely... "You can copy my ideas, BUY YOU'LL NEVER COPY MY RRRRRRREEEEEEESSSSSSUUUULLLLLLLTS... <-Results" Oh wait maybe it was "You can take my life! But You'll never take my FREEEEDOOMM".

Alright I just finally couldn't take it anymore and had to throw down. Dawg know what I'm saying Yoh :-P I recently took an ActiveRain break for about 2 months or so while I tired taking my Real Estate career in a different direction...

While I was away some un-named Rainer's decided that since I was away they would basically copy my ENTIRE AR profile and setup down to the naming of my blog and even the content I have within my profile. They didn't think about the fact that my background is Search Engine Marketing and RESULTS ARE OBTAINED BY WHAT YOU DON'T SEE...

Just because I was able to obtain my rankings quickly doesn't mean they can be copied quickly. It means I took the bloody time and did the research. For your entertainment are the pictures to prove it.

Even after two months break I was able to get my rankings back up to almost normal in about 1 week...

By the way the 1 high lighted is 7th place. Used to have 5th but coming back ;-)

If you're looking for someone whom actually knows SEO and would like to help out a broke new agent. I'm looking for some SEO jobs at least until I get my first couple listings, my prices are reasonable actually dirt cheap compared to some of these companies online saying they'll get you top rankings and charge 1k and up...

If you could be so kind please subscribe to my blog feed as well, I'm going to start getting back into the habit of publishing a couple tips every couple days.

Virtual Tour From Hell - To Laugh Or Cry...

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 01:35:24 -0500

This is an amazingly hilarious virtual tour that my brother actually e-mailed to me. Its great when your family starts helping you with marketing ideas :-P Just thought this had to be thrown up on GoodO'L AR :-D For all you pros out their who really like the extremely difficult deals..

If it works why fix it...

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:16:54 -0500

To start this post off... I've gotta say uhhh WOW!... :-P Its almost funny to see how many local Realtors have copied my ideas and SEO creations :-D

I'm proud to see that I've made such and impact, yet I do finally understand how all those bloggers and website builders feel when their works are copied TO THE TEEEE... But they couldn't exactly copyright it so there isn't much they could do.

Oh well I'm happy to see that others are learning from my articles and my account here on ActiveRain as well. At least I hope those whom have clipped an idea or two from my articles or maybe for an example title of their accounts are subscribed as readers to my blog :-D

Just goes to show just because you can copy an idea if you don't improve on it or know fully how the creation was implemented then it won't do you much good.

P.S "Overland Park Real Estate" on Google is helping to show that most things really do require work. Not just the ability to copy and paste.

P.P.S Sorry for the rant just had to pop in a express a bit of frustration.

By the way hello to all those out their whom have been reading and thank you. Sorry I feel off the ActiveRain wagon for a bit. I'm hopping back on soon. ;-)

SEO For Dummies - Google Pagerank Explained - SEO 101 Series

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 07:42:45 -0500

Pagerank is the most famous system for ranking sites. It's used by Google algorithm as an indicator of the importance of a webpage. The exact algorithm is keep secret, but we have an idea of how it works. This post will introduce the basics of Pagerank.

Votes

Here's the official descriptionof pagerank:

Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Basically this means that each time a page links to your homepage, your homepage's pagerank is increased by an amount that depends on the pagerank of the linking page. (that's the reason why webmasters often buy links from pages with high pagerank)

The pagerank increment depends also on the number of outgoing links a page has (a link from a page with thousands of outgoing links is worth less than a link from a page with few links)

Toolbar

Google continuously update the pagerank of each webpage, but values are published every three or four months and can be seen in the google toolbar, with a green bar with integer values between 1 (less linked sites) and 10 (very important sites), with 0 that means "not yet classified"
The pagerank value shown in the toolbar it's not the actual and real value for the page you're visiting, it's just a rough estimation of the pagerank at the moment the values were published (every 3-4 months)

The PageRank value shown in the toolbar is not linear, that is, going from PR3 to PR4 is easier than going from PR4 to PR5 (it should be a log function, with base > 5).

Nofollow

This system of votes increased spams in comments or webpages, as spammers wanted to collect as many links as possible to have better pagerank... so google proposed the nofollow tag to be added to the "untrusted" links (i.e. in comments or places where everybody can add links). There's an ongoing debate on the benefits of the nofollowtag, and the use and abuse of it (wikipedia recently started to use the nofollow tagfor all its outgoing links), but what you have to know is that a link with rel = nofollow will not give pagerank to the linked site.
Here's how a normal and a nofollowed link look like in html:

<a href=www.moneyvsdebt.com> real estate seo </a>
<a href="www.site.com" rel ="nofollow" > nofollowed </a>

Pagerank is overrated

That's true
Pagerank it's good, easy to understand and evaluate, but it's just one of the multiple factor used by google to rank a site: it should not be your first priority, your priority should be the content, then making sure spiders can find it.
If you've good content the backlinks will follow because users will be happy with your content and link back to it... thiswill bring higher position in the SERPs. (Actually, this and avoiding some common mistakes we'll talk about in the future)

Resources

After this brief introduction, you may be intrested in some further and more technical readings about google pagerank and related stuff:

Google Pagerank on wikipedia
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
The original paper in which Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page presented the first google implementation
Information retrieval based on historical data
U.S. Pantent for Search Engine 125, possibly some hints on google present and future algorithms (This is really a good resource!)
Pagerank Explained
Detailed explanation of how pagerank it's supposed to work
Pagerank Explained #2
Another similar explanation of pagerank
Topic sensitive Pagerank
Proposal for a vectorial Pagerank, with different values for different topics

Real Estate Flypaper -- SEO Style --- Blogging Questions and Ideas

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:51:54 -0500

I responded to a post today and wrote possibly the longest comment I've ever written before so I figured heck, might as well turn it into my own post. Instead of just wasting it or under-utilizing the information.

Michele my blog is mainly focused on Search Engine and website oriented content. I hope you can find something useful I've got over 13 SEO posts right now and add more all the time. http://activerain.com/blogs/overlandpark/tags/seo

If you have a specific topic or questions, send me an e-mail and I'll try and get a post thrown up for you.

I wonder if it is better to find a niche and work hard establishing great , steady content to blog and web pages or is building linking better ?

It depends on how you would like to be found. My A.R blog is a mis-mash of tons of different content pulling in all kinds of people. All depends on how you like to play the game.

Is RSS important and well, what does it actually do ?

RSS stands for (Really Simple Syndication), its extremely important in todays blog driven world. On all the websites I create I make sure I've got a blog on the site somewhere now, because it really helps for Search Engine crawlablility as well as allows people to read your content without having to visit your website.

Is Google really king and is it worth worrying so much about anymore?

Yes Google semi-sadly really is king, I've got a picture in my SEO group of this years COMScore break down and Google has 46-52% of the market share.

I feel like I am covering the basics and getting an audience- at least good hits BUT what is it that makes them stick, and come back ?

Constant content, make sure and start writing articles ahead of time. If you don't have daily article or updates try and at least make sure you've got every other day or so. Its a really good idea to write articles in draft mode and just store them up when you've got time to write so in times when you don't you can easily get a well written post up.

How often should I freshen up website content ?

Uhhh, stated in the previous question ;-)

Is it ok to blog on ActiveRain but also post it elsewhere or is that double dipping and a no-no?

Is it ok? I would suggest it more as a must. If you don't have multiple avenues for pushing out your name its a good idea to not bother at all :-P Kind of like Robert G Allen's idea of "Multiple Streams of Income". Always have multiple blogs at the same time. Even if you have to post an article on one blog and then re-syndicate it onto your other blogs just make sure you link to the original article.

Historic Downtown Overland Park Kansas

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:46:35 -0500

Welcome to Downtown Overland Park, home of the Downtown Overland Park Farmers Market, Clock Tower Series Concerts, and other family-oriented events.

Located just off Metcalf between 78th and 83rd streets in the heart of Overland Park, Historic Downtown Overland Park is an integral part of our community's heritage.

Situated on the historic Santa Fe Trail where it originally bustled with horse-drawn traffic, the famous Steam Electric Interurban Railroad Line, gravel streets, a dance hall, restaurant, dry goods store, blacksmith shop, The Aviation Park and other popular amenities that people enjoyed daily.

A century later, Downtown Overland Park's charming past and small town flavor are thriving through a vast array of 300 locally owned and operated shops, where the business owner still waits on you. Services include eateries, antiques, art and gift galleries, specialty shops, and assorted business services.

Prior to incorporation, Overland Park was part of the Mission Urban Township, which included the cities of Mission and Prairie Village.

William B. Strang Jr. 1905

In the early 1990s, city officials focused their efforts on renovating the historic downtown area. The Clock Tower Plaza was dedicated and the Farmers' Market Pavilion was constructed.

To help you discover some of the highpoints for yourself, self-guided tour material is available at the Carriage House, 8445 Santa Fe Drive in the Santa Fe Commons Park and at the Downtown Overland Park Partnership office, 7315 W. 79th Street.

Strang Aviation Park Pavilion Building 1913

The City of Overland Park traces its roots back to 1905 with the arrival of its founder William B. Strang, Jr., who platted subdivisions along a military roadway. Strang envisioned a "park-like" community that was self-sustaining and well planned. He also sought strong commerce, quality education, vibrant neighborhoods, convenient transportation and accommodating recreational facilities.

Strang platted several subdivisions and named one "Overland Park." Many of his other subdivisions had "Overland" in their names as well. There soon were more than 21 homes and plenty of businesses.

His limestone car barn at 79th and Santa Fe Drive is now the site of Traditions Furniture. The Carriage House at Santa Fe Commons Park, is the site of the Overland Park Historical Society. Each building is open for tours and located within the downtown Overland Park business district.

Before Strang's death in 1921, he established several housing developments, an interurban railroad and an airfield. Remnants from Strang's interurban line remain today.

Downtown Overland Park 1949

Overland Park Farmers Market - June 27 2007

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:37:17 -0500

Located on Marty between 79th and 80th Streets, the Downtown Overland Park Farmers Market is a thriving open air market offering produce, flowers, specialty foods and entertainment for the entire family.

Open Wednesdays from 7:30am through sellout and Saturdays from 6:30am until sellout, this market offers the best of the best from local growers under the Farmers Market Pavilion.

On the sidewalks near the clock tower, patrons can find fresh pies, gourmet pasta, locally baked bread and other specialty food items.

The Clock Tower Series provides entertainment for the entire family and is the perfect opportunity to bring lawn chairs and gather at this central point in the Historic Downtown Overland Park Business District.

Take a walk through this Historic District and experience the ambiance of Historic Downtown Overland Park!

A easy to use list of all the vendors located at the Overland park Farmers Market :-D

The links provided below take you directly to your chosen vendors Web site allowing you to take a peek at where your produce or flowers are grown.

Diana Kline
Kline Design Enterprises

John Cobine
Cobine Steinz Heirloom Vegetables

Judy Moser and Ken O'Dell
Spring Valley Design
Judy@springvalleynursery.com

Edward Jerome Nunnink and Kate Wicinski
Wicinski Nunnink Fresh Cuts
Wicins3891@aol.com

Vera Clift
Clift Family Farm

Joe L. Bryson
Bryson's Fresh Farm Produce
JL_Bryson@yahoo.com
http://www.brysonsfarmfreshproduce.com/

Joli Winer
Heartland Honey

Jarred Juhl
Juhl Greenhouse and Truck Farm

Aaron Holder
Clearbrook Farm
clearbrookfarm@netzero.com

Nany Malone
Nanco Gardens

George Dragush
George Dragush

Thane Palmberg
Palmberg Farm

Jeanne and Jim Johnson
Johnson Farms, Plants, and Pumpkins
Johnsonfarms1006@sbcglobal.net
http://www.johnsonfarms.net/

Catherine Pavicich and raymond Pavelac
Catherine's Naturally Grown Vegetables and Herbs

Craig O'Reilly
Craig's Produce
grubbyswine@yahoo.com

Gary Kanak
Sunshine Greenhouse

Michael Schembs
Michael Schembs' Hostas
Mshostas@yahoo.com

Deborah Elrod and Peggy Edwards
Edwards Farm
Peggy's Produce
delrod@aol.com

Richard P. Harrington
Richard's Farm Market

Mike Nitchals
Nitchals Orchard

Donald H. Turner
Turner's Orchard

Mike Oxford
O&O Produce

Dave Bludsoe & H.E. Bludsoe

Robert Mealman and Robert and Linda Hughes
Bob's Baskets

Tim and Catherine Sullivan
Sullivan's Green House
Csulli7@gmail.com
http://www.pantrygardenherbs.com/

Fred Stewart
Fred Stewart

Vernon Thomas
Pumpkins and Pines Tree Farms

Bill Clevenger
Last Dollar Farm

Dean and Cathy Davis
His Crown/My Crown Produce and Flowers
deanandcathy@sbcglobal.com

Bret and Brenda Fahrmeier
Fahrmeier Farms
tailormadeg@cs.com

Richard, Joan, Jeff and Julie Smith and Rebecca and Claudia Moody
Treehouse Berry Farm

John Casaert
J&S Greenhouse
hobie77@peoplepc.com

Dan May and Denise Trimner
The Organic Way
danandmary@acion.net
mailto:www.theorganicwayfarm.com

Jim Soper
Soper's Hosta Garden
jim@sopperhosta.com
http://www.sopershosta.com/

Bart Hall
Prairie Star Farm, LTD
greenhouse@prairiestarfarm.com

Chiong Vang
Hmongvaj Farm
Vangboyz-1@yahoo.com

Fake Job Ads Defraud Americans To Secure Green Cards For Immigrants

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 05:45:23 -0500

This just made me sick and infuriated me. No wonder our job market is starting to go to crap and Americans jobs arn't being outsourced anymore! Heck they just are being rejected OUTRIGHT! Now isn't that nice.

Good job Hilary maybe you can get it right Tommarrow ;-) If you don't know what I'm talking about just watch the video below. Also (Yes the spelling of Tomarrow is incorrect, Hilary's idea not mine :-P )

Touch Screen Computing - SurfaceComputing is Apon Us!

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:54:42 -0500

Be prepaired to be awwed and ooohhhed! This video is simply amazing there is not much else you can say about it. Heck one thing is for sure I want to know what in the heck that screen or surface is that they are using for their computer interfacing!

Another update I got from a friend for the video above...

Millions in U.S. Without Bank Accounts

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:45:45 -0500

I saw an article about this on AP and just had to post some excerpts from it! Just blew me away. I couldn't believe that with as digital as our society has become we still have 1 in 12 people in America whom don't have bank accounts of ANY KIND... Grandma stuffing money under the mattress isn't the only one living outside the banking system.

As many as 28 million people in the United States are forgoing traditional financial institutions because of mistrust, cultural and language barriers or a belief that by the time all the bills are paid there will be nothing left for an account.

That can be expensive and risky. People can run up big fees to cash checks, pay bills and meet their other financial needs. Walking around with large amounts of cash can make them a target for thieves.

The bankless are estimated to earn hundreds of billions of dollars a year in income. Seeing a business opportunity, banks are trying to draw in these potential customers. So, too, are check-cashing businesses and retailers, including Wal-Mart.

Many people, however, still resist, preferring to remain in the financial shadows.

They tend to be minority - Hispanic or blacks especially - as well as low income and young.

According to the Federal Reserve, about one in 12 families - 8.7 percent - does not have a bank account.

The number is higher for the poorest - nearly a quarter of families earning less than $18,900, the Fed said, citing 2004 data.

For some, like Rosa Alvarez, the financial choices can be bewildering.

"I don't understand about this bank stuff," says Alvarez, 54, who lives in Texas. A nagging fear that she might make a mistake "if I don't keep up with it right or something" keeps her from opening an account. She had one once, briefly. But she had trouble keeping track of her balance. She thinks that when the account closed, she owed the bank $12.

Carlos Maren, 25, a cook, is afraid that if he opens a bank account in the U.S., he will get hit with fees for not keeping in enough money or for taking out more money than he has.

"My uncle sometimes says that it's expensive ... because getting a bank account...

Some of the different facts and figures came from different places... Below...

On the Net:

Federal Reserve: http://www.federalreserve.gov/

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency http://www.occ.treas.gov/

Financial Service Centers of America: http://www.fisca.org/

American Bankers Association: http://www.aba.com/default.htm

Consumer Federation of America: http://www.consumerfed.org/

"No Follow" Cleanse Your Blog Of These Haters! -SEO 101 Part 2- -Free Tool Included-

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 02:21:02 -0500

Fun With Meta Tags 101 - Free Tools Series - With Pictures

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:58:31 -0500

Want to get a top ranking in search engines? No problem! All you need to do is add a few magical "meta tags" to your web pages, and you'll skyrocket to the top of the listings.

If only it were so easy. Let's make it clear:

Meta tags are not a magic solution.
Meta tags are not a magic solution.
Meta tags are not a magic solution.

Meta tags have never been a guaranteed way to gain a top ranking on crawler-based search engines. Today, the most valuable feature they offer the web site owner is the ability to control to some degree how their web pages are described by some search engines. They also offer the ability to prevent pages from being indexed at all.

META Tags are hidden text placed in the HEAD section of your HTML page that are used by most major search engines to index your site based on your keywords and descriptions. It is very important to use META Tags as well as a good TITLE if you expect to be found in most search engines. Note that META Tags are not the only thing search engines will look at when ranking your sites - some search engines will ignore META Tags completely. Most search engines will also index your body text.

Personally I don't place a very high value on meta tags, however with as competetive as Real Estate SEO is getting these days I've decided to start dropping some pointers because heck every little bit counts.

Some really easy to use and free tools for your use below...

I LOVE THIS ONE -> Its the coolest by far :-P http://www.submitcorner.com/Tools/Meta/

http://www.widexl.com/remote/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html

http://www.submitexpress.com/metatags.html

Some other SEO and free tools related articles I've written...

Blog Article Titles - Why worry about it? - SEO 101 Part I

Free is the word... Syndicate Your Real Estate Listings...

Free is the word... AMAZING ARE THE SITES! My gift to you ;-)

SEM and Advertising 101 - Banner Ads -Vs- PPC

If you like this article and would like to start seeing my following SEO and Real Estate SEO articles to come please be so kind as to subscribe with the button to the upper right above your picture while reading this article ;-)

Pizza Prices On The Rise!? Its a Cheesy Deal...

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:45:31 -0500

Have any of you taken a gander at the prices on "Cheese" pizza at your local Pizza Shops? Prices are starting to climb due to the chain reaction of the farm industry. I know this doesn't have to do with real estate but found it to be rather interesting market information.

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Block cheddar cheese reached $2.08 a pound Thursday on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, up 78 percent from $1.17 a pound a year ago. At the end of 2006, the price was $1.33. Cheddar is the benchmark for mozzarella and other cheeses. Industry observers attribute the price surge to strong demand coupled with higher milk prices.

Some big pizza chains, which use mountains of cheese, already have responded.

Both Pizza Hut and Papa John's International Inc. have raised the price of their cheese-only pizzas to the same amount as one-topping pizzas at company-owned stores.

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Sterling Silver Jewelry - Add a bit of glam to your life...

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:23:24 -0500

Going along with my new "Geek It Forward" idea I've decided to write an article about my cousins sterling silver handmade jewelry website. He has been in the hobby for a couple years and actually this past year took some class on how to create some more advanced pieces at a local college.

If you're a silver jewelry fan you're going to love checking out his website hes got pieces and creations of all shapes and styles. From girly and feminine to tie-guards and other more masculine pieces. Along with his sterling silver jewelry pieces he has Copper and other different types of metals and TONS of different designs and colors.

Best of all if you can't find something you like just put in a request to have it custom made...

Have you "Geeked it forward" today?

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:09:37 -0500

I just got done watching the movie "Pay It Forward" WOW!!! I love that movie I've seen it before but just had to watch it again with my girlfriend of course ;-). It gave me a good idea though. I'm going to try and start at least every once in awhile "Geek It Forward".

Also going to start a group for it.

What is geek it forward?

Find someone you don't mind helping out or writing an article or review of their website and of course add a couple links within the article as well. Try to make the article relavant to their content as much as possible. Basically send some link love someone elses way without asking for anything in return.

Sellers of Appreciated Real Estate Have at Least Nine Effective Sales Strategies to Choose from According to a New Publication

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 04:42:47 -0500

A new manual developed by top financial and tax experts reveals the top 9 ways that sellers of real estate or closely held businesses can sell for maximum benefit and tax savings
West Linn, OR, June 17, 2007 --(PR.com)-- Sellers of appreciated real estate and businesses often have a very difficult time deciding how they should plan their exit and sale of their asset.

With more than 25 valid capital gains, financial, and tax planning strategies available to choose from, including the 1031 exchange, installment sale, charitable remainder trust, and Ensured Installment Sale, sellers find themselves jumping into the sale knowing very little about the strategies and what strategy is best for their situation.

Because of the vast confusion that sellers face, The Settlement Institute, a national education firm who focuses on financial and tax issues, has developed a comprehensive manual revealing the "Top 9 Ways to Sell Real Estate or a Business", aimed at educating sellers on every aspect of these top strategies so they can make well educated decisions. According to the nationally recognized co-author Jack Meligan CSSC, BCFE, "The average seller simply does not know all of their options and how to choose the right strategy to fit their needs". Options vary from the common, such as the 1031 exchange and installment sale - to the little known like the Ensured Installment Sale and NIMCRUT.

The comprehensive manual is written in a way that is extremely simple to read, easy to follow, and guides the reader through each of the top 9 ways step-by-step. In addition, the manual includes many lesser known tax loopholes and various charts and case studies to better illustrate the strategies in vivid detail. "The manual is written to cater to both the average joe and the experienced financial professionals. We have financial planners and CPA's downloading this manual and telling us that even they learned many valuable strategies and tax secrets that they had no clue about," says Meligan.

With the many options that sellers of appreciated real estate and businesses face, it is to the sellers benefit to learn all of their options, especially when looking at a large capital gain or estate tax bill. "We provide this manual for all of our clients because we feel it would be negligent not to let them know all of their options. While one strategy may work for a particular seller just fine, another strategy may actually be the perfect fit", explains Meligan.

For sellers of appreciated real estate or businesses who want to be informed on all of their options and know what the top experts know, go to: http://www.settlementinstitute.org/top9ways/9waysebook.html to download your copy of this valuable step-by-step manual now. SEI has included over $200 worth of bonuses for the first 100 clients who download the manual.

The Settlement Education Institute (SEI) is a national education firm who focuses on educating both professional advisors and the "average joe" on financial and tax related issues. SEI takes a different approach on choosing its topics of interest. Instead of educating on broad based topics, SEI focuses on the lesser known and often more effective financial and tax strategies and reveals these strategies in a simple, yet comprehensive manner.

SEI collaborates with the nations top financial and tax experts including Jack L. Meligan (a 22 year industry veteran and national expert) and top tax attorneys including Robert W. Wood (a Forbes "Top 100 Attorney in the U.S.) to create its exclusive education materials. To contact SEI please call 1-800-666-5584, email: info[at]settlementinstitute.org, visit: http://www.structuredsalespro.com or http://www.settlementinstitute.org

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Investing in real estate is a good idea...

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 04:36:50 -0500

More people become millionaires through real estate investments than any other method. Investing in real estate is a great way to accumulate wealth quickly. Don't miss out on it as it is one of the best investments around. Just learn how to invest. Designing an investment portfolio that fits your needs is always a complex process. Unfortunately, many people neglect real estate as one of the most attractive ways to diversify their investments because they aren't aware of the variety of ways it can be included. In the past few years, the real estate market has exploded and the opportunities to invest in it either directly or indirectly has grown to keep pace. Individual investors should always consult a professional if they want to design a portfolio that properly balances the opportunity for greater gains against possible risks. This will vary depending on where you are in life, what your retirement plans are and a host of other factors. However a few simple things should be kept in mind:

• Diversifying is always essential to design a good investment portfolio. That is, you should never have more than a third of your investments tied up in any one form.

• Learn as much as you can about the individual categories and the risks involved in each. Generally speaking, stocks and bonds are somewhat safer, but show a slower return, although it does tend to be steady. Commodities (precious metals, oil, natural gas, etc.) are riskier but offer greater return.

• Mutual funds can provide you with the power of group purchasing when investing, while spreading the risk over a larger group of investors.

Real estate is often neglected when designing a portfolio unless the individual is purchasing property himself. Actually, the best way to invest in real estate is often through what is called a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). This is an entity set up specifically to invest in large properties such as hotels, high rise properties and malls.

You can also invest directly in real property without becoming a part of an REIT. After all, the need for real estate will never go away, and land generally increases in value over the period of time, so its a relatively good investment strategy. Its a low-risk strategy that historically has shown to be quite profitable in most cases.

When adding real estate to your investment portfolio, be sure to do the research and legwork to educate yourself. Study the market in your area, learn all you can about any property you are considering and decide whether becoming a landlord or flipping properties will be more lucrative in the long term. Its important to know if you have enough available cash flow to be able to keep your property until it's value has reached the point where selling makes the most sense. To include real property in your portfolio, you need to periodically check the market and make sure the property is working for you in the most profitable way possible.

Soruces : Investing Ideas

One City’s Home Sellers Do Better on Their Own

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:35:45 -0500

Geesh people if you can't sell a home or market it correctly then please go back to your day job!... All these stupid out of the blue stories are starting to become the fad right now and its bugging the heck outta me. Anyone with any good FSBO stories please let me know I'm thinking about creating a friendly website dedicated to FSBO's and how great that REALLY END UP BEING... Planning on using a bit of my Real Estate SEO to get the job done and hopefully with the help of all you fellow bloggers we can have some article ranking under FSBO that are more realistic ;-) I've made a group for our stories as well FSBO Information or http://activerain.com/groups/FSBOs

It sounds like the setup for a dull economist's joke. Who gets the better deal: the cautious economist who sells his house through a real estate agent, or his risk-taking colleague who finds a buyer on his own?

But the question - debated by two Northwestern University economists who chose different methods to sell their homes - and the research it helped prompt are serious. And the answer will be of interest to anyone who has paused to consider whether paying a real estate agent's commission, typically 5 to 6 percent of the sale price, is worth it.

The conclusion, in a study to be released today based on home-sales data from 1998 to 2004 in Madison, Wis., is that people in that city who sold their homes through real estate agents typically did not get a higher sale price than people who sold their homes themselves. When the agent's commission is factored in, the for-sale-by-owner people came out ahead financially.

The study is to be made public on Northwestern's Web site.

Madison is home to one of the biggest for-sale-by-owner Web sites in the country. The economists pitted that site against the local multiple listing service operated by real estate agents.

There are asterisks. The authors cautioned that they did not know whether the results from Madison applied to the country as a whole; certainly, selling a house without a real estate agent would be harder in a city without a heavily trafficked for-sale-by-owner Web site. The authors are also analyzing Madison data from 2005 and 2006, when the housing market cooled after a long run-up, to see how their findings might have changed.

Some aspects tilted in agents' favor. The researchers found that homes on the multiple listing service sold somewhat faster than houses on the for-sale-by-owner site. The study also did not place a value on other services provided by agents in selling a home.

The authors have presented their paper at forums at many leading universities, but it has not yet been submitted to a journal for peer review.

For all its caveats, though, the study is highly unusual in comprehensively measuring the impact on the sale price of a home of hiring, or not hiring, a real estate agent.

The findings fly in the face of studies by the National Association of Realtors. The group has said that houses sold via its members' local multiple listing services get a 16 percent premium over homes sold by their owners.

The economists' study is likely to be seen as ammunition for critics and lower-cost competitors who question the need for 5 or 6 percent commissions - which deliver about $60 billion a year to agents and their employers.

Homes sold on FSBOMadison.com, the for-sale-by-owner Web site, fetched an average price of $175,068 during the years examined. Those sold on the multiple listing service brought an average price of $173,205, roughly equal when taking into account the study's margin of error.

The FSBO (pronounced FIZZ-bo) sales results were adjusted for timing, for house and lot size and characteristics, and for neighborhoods to make them comparable with sales by agents. They were also adjusted for what the researchers came to believe is an extra bit of shrewdness that FSBO sellers possess.

"Greater patience, greater bargaining leverage," said Francois Ortalo-Magne, an associate professor of real estate and urban land economics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and one of the three authors of the study.

His co-authors both joined Northwestern as professors of economics about three years ago and sold homes elsewhere before moving to the Evanston, Ill., campus.

Aviv Nevo came from the University of California, Berkeley, and used a real estate agent to sell his house, pocketing a profit from five years of ownership, he said, that may have exceeded his salary for that period as an assistant professor.

Igal Hendel, three years ahead of Mr. Nevo as a graduate student at Harvard and a collaborator on previous research, moved from the University of Wisconsin and sold his home by advertising it on FSBOMadison.com.

"It started by us arguing about who did the right thing," Mr. Nevo said. "Igal said, ‘I saved a commission.' I said, yeah, but who knows how much you lost on the price?"

The National Association of Realtors has been defending its fees. In a 2005 survey of home buyers, it reported that FSBO houses sold for a median price of $198,200 and those sold through an agent went for a median price of $230,000, or 16 percent more.

Two-fifths of those FSBO sellers were selling to a friend, relative or neighbor, and that might have led to lower prices, but agent-assisted sellers still enjoyed a huge premium, the association said.

(Nationally, about 13 percent of home sales were for-sale-by-owner in 2005, the group said. For the seven-year Madison study, the market share of homes sold on the FSBO Web site was 14 percent.)

And in a March 2003 issue of Realtor Magazine Online, the association, in advising its members how to persuade a seller to switch from a FSBO ad to listing with an agent, said to tell them that a 2002 survey found "on average, people who sell their homes through a real estate professional receive a price 27 percent higher than people who sell their home themselves."

"So even with my commission, you'll probably come out ahead."

Walter Molony, a spokesman for the trade group, said in an interview, "It's certainly a hell of a lot more than the 5 to 6 percent you're going to pay in a commission."

Those studies had their own asterisks. The 2005 survey was based on buyers' written responses, rather than actual records of transactions, and included data only from people who chose to reply - 7,813 responses out of 145,000 questionnaires mailed out.

The association also did not disclose data on house size, lot size and some other factors that could affect price differences between the sales techniques. The association does not consider that a weakness of the study, though.

"When you're looking at this large of a survey, the aggregate numbers smooth those things out," Mr. Molony said. "We feel it's representative."

Mr. Molony and colleagues at the national association have not seen the Madison research. He said, however, that local markets vary so widely that "it wouldn't be surprising to see a market where there is no difference between an agent-assisted and FSBO price."

The economists studying the Madison market received listing data from both the FSBO site and the Realtors Association of South Central Wisconsin, which operates the local multiple listing service. Those were checked against records at the assessor's office for actual sale prices. The study looked at 15,616 listings from 1998 to 2004.

Not every Realtor agrees with the national association's strategy of claiming a higher sales price. After all, it may sound great - to a seller - that a real estate agent could help get a higher price. But agents typically also represent buyers in such transactions and, obviously, buyers do not want to pay 16 percent more.

"We're trying to tell the public that they pay 16 percent more if they use us?" said an exasperated David K. Stark, owner of the Stark Company, one of Madison's largest real estate firms, when asked about the national association's claims. If that were true, he said, "all buyers should shop FSBO."

Mr. Stark is not worried that every seller will stampede to FSBOMadison.com. "Most people list with a Realtor because they don't want to hassle with it," he said. "It's complex. There's a lot of drama."

Plenty of people agree. Katie Mohr, who manages a stock trading desk for a bank and is moving to Milwaukee, hired one of Madison's busiest agents to sell her five-bedroom house on the city's West Side. The agent, Sherry Lessing, handled everything, and within five weeks the Mohrs got the price they wanted, $560,000.

"I couldn't take the personal interaction of people walking in my house and making nasty comments," Mrs. Mohr said. "I don't want to hear that people didn't like my wallpaper. Six percent was well worth paying for."

Mrs. Lessing said that price parity between FSBO sales and agent sales is not surprising because buyers can now comparison-shop on the Internet. "Even the inexperienced buyer can walk into a home and tell if it's overpriced - based on competition," she said.

Some buyers think a 6 percent commission - $33,600 in Mrs. Mohr's case - is too much. Dr. Harry Sharata, a Madison dermatologist, listed his four-bedroom West Side house on FSBOMadison.com. "We try to avoid the Realtors as much as possible, thinking we can have more room to negotiate if that fee isn't built into the price," he said.

Dr. Sharata listed the house two weeks ago at $649,000 and received an offer on Wednesday. He would not disclose the amount of the offer. Like many FSBO sellers, Dr. Sharata said he would gladly pay an agent representing the buyer a 3 percent fee, or $19,470 at his asking price, but felt little need for an agent's help in selling.

"For the most part, these transactions are straightforward," he said.

The study found, however, that homes listed with agents sold more quickly - with a 25 percent probability of selling within 60 days versus a 16 percent probability for FSBO-advertised homes.

On average, it took FSBO homes 125 days to sell and agent-sold homes 105 days. A faster sale, of course, can save money on mortgage payments, taxes and insurance, the economists noted.

FSBOMadison.com, the subject of a January 2006 article in The New York Times, charges $150 for an ad on the site and a yard sign. Taking advantage of antiestablishment sentiment in Madison, which has a highly educated and liberal population, it quickly grabbed a market share of roughly 20 percent. That made it among the most successful challengers in the country to real estate agent domination of home sales.

That scale, along with the cooperation of the site's owners and of the local Realtor group, made the economists' study possible. "We don't have national data," Mr. Nevo, one of the authors, said. "FSBOMadison is unique."

The results, from another perspective, show that with agents failing to bring a higher price, their commission pays only for the actual work they do. "That was surprising," Mr. Nevo said.

He suspects that sellers will begin to examine more closely the cost of all the small tasks handled by agents. To justify a $12,000 fee on a $200,000 house, he said, "you'd have to have a very high hourly rate" for an agent's work.

Mr. Nevo, who employed an agent to sell his Berkeley house, said that, so far, his FSBO-using colleague Mr. Hendel is winning their argument. "I probably owe him lunch," Mr. Nevo said.

New technology jobs, Rule Breaking Billionaires and Domain Mispeling Guru

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 04:43:21 -0500

Its 4:06am (cst) right now, but just couldn't resist throwing up this post! I have found some of the cool Web 2.0 jobs and crazy business ideas you'd probably never even thought of... :-P

When Ham wants a domain, he leans over and quietly instructs an associate to bid on his behalf. He likes wedding names, so his guy lifts the white paddle and snags Weddingcatering.com for $10,000. Greeting.com is not nearly as good as the plural Greetings.com, but Ham grabs it anyway, for $350,000. This guy actually owns .cm or at least he has a parnership with the West African country of Cameroon. Domain Guru P.S Hes worth of 300 MILLION!!!

For the ultimate list of business rule breaking GENIOUSES! You'll have to check out this Business 2.0 article that will have you dropping your jaw to the floor when you read about some of the profits of these guys and their ideas. Just for example Chipmaker and outspoken libertarian T.J. Rodgers "We turn silicon into something more valuable than gold," he said. "Now people want to get clean energy, and silicon can do that too." The board finally agreed, and in 2004 Cypress bought SunPower for $24.7 million. The solar manufacturer was spun off in 2005, and the SunPower shares owned by Cypress are now worth nearly $2.5 billion. Along with other business gurus whom have reached superstar status such as the owners of Amazon.com, Craigslist.com, Wholefood, and even Ask.com!!! Business Rule Breaking Genious'

And last, but definitly not least! You've got to check out some of the new and amazing jobs that are out there. Some I was interested in were the Information Engineer this data junkie can earn in upwards of $120,000k per year! Along with the Radiosurgeon a technology I didn't even know exsisted! The CyberKnife zaps radiation beams with submillimeter precision at tumors inside patients' bodies. After as many as five, one-hour treatments, tumors can disappear in a matter of days. -- But of course the best had to be saved for last! ;-) The "Second Life" lawyer! If you have heard of the game than you are already ahead of the game (Pun intented):-P This guy he took in $7,000 in fees in the first two weeks after hanging up his virtual shingle, he's optimistic: "I fully expect to keep getting more business this way." Crazy Awesome Jobs

"For sale by owner" web sites can generate higher prices than Realtors -The REAL Story-

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 01:04:54 -0500

Just thought everyone might want to see this story!... Its on the frontpage of Digg.com and I really don't expect it to go away unless a couple thousand people "bury" the story vs digg it. Anywaz PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR COMMENTS AND REBUTTALS... I'll update this article in a couple hours with REAL FACTS AND REAL FIGURES FROM RAINERS! If you've got a blog try linking to this so we can out rank the other article in Google and show REAL FACTS VS THESE B.S. FIGURES...

Three economists decided to investigate whether using a for sale by owner (FSBO) web site could actually make homeowners more money compared to selling a house with a traditional real estate agent. The answer, at least in Madison, Wisconsin, is yes.

In the Dark Ages before the light of the Internet beamed across the land, Realtors (the term is trademarked) were the ones who had access to the lists of properties for sale in a given location. This information could be very difficult to collect on one's own without flying to the desired city and driving the side streets, jotting down addresses. But with the growth of the Internet, it's easy to list and share information, and even Realtors are opening up their listings to public access. In such a situation, does it still make sense to pay a six percent commission?

If a low-stress selling experience is what you want, a Realtor is probably the way to go. But if it's all about the bottom line, Igal Hendel, Aviv Nevo, and Francois Ortalo-Magné argue that selling a place yourself can be more lucrative in a city with a well-used FSBO web site. Madison, WI has such a site (FSBOMadison.com) and provided an excellent test case for the authors to compare FSBO results to Realtor results between 1998 and 2004. The study was made available yesterday (PDF) by the authors.

In a nutshell, the paper shows that the FSBO homes sold for an average price of $175,068 in Madison, while Realtor homes sold for $173,205 in the same period. After commissions are removed from that figure, the FSBO folks came out a good deal ahead. Using a Realtor's multiple listing service (MLS) does shorten the time a house is on the market, though, and prevents you from having to watch strangers tramp through your home, pointing out the water stains on your woodwork.

The New York Times had a writeup on the report today, and they note that the National Association of Realtors, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the country, takes issue with these findings. In an earlier study touted by the group, they claim that selling with a Realtor leads to a 16 percent increase in a home's sales price. That's great news if you're a seller, but not so positive if you're a buyer-and Realtors represent both.

Combine the power of FSBO web sites with pricing information provided by sites like Zillow, and it's getting increasingly easy for homeowners to be savvy salesmen of their own property. The web has already put the hurt on services like travel agencies; will the far more lucrative real estate market feel the pinch next?

Source: http://digg.com/tech_news/Web_sites_can_generate_higher_prices_than_Realtors

Spam busting plan to make businesses pay

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 00:42:36 -0500

WAHOO!!! FINALLY! Our ISPs are going to help release us from at least a little spam and heck up their stocks value at the same time ;-) Now we just need to figure out how to get China and South Korea to pay for e-mail comming out of their country... Geesh Out GDP would shoot through the roof! Just from spam payments :-P

Five of the largest ISPs in the US are to start charging businesses for guaranteed delivery of their emails, in a bid to combat spam.

Goodmail Systems, which provides a service called CertifiedEmail, has signed up Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable's Road Runner and Verizon as customers. Emails certified using the system are marked with a blue ribbon to show they come from a trusted source, thus bypassing spam filters - a privilege that will cost the sender a quarter of a US cent per email.

The voluntary scheme is aimed at large corporations and financial institutions whose mass mailings are most likely to be spoofed and caught in spam filters. Not-for-profit groups will be able to use the service for roughly a tenth of the commercial rate.

Goodmail's chief executive, Richard Gingras, said: "With spam and phishing hitting historic highs even in the last six months, we have seen the limits of technologies which attempt to filter out the bad email. Consumers want their email system to let them know which email is real and safe to open and act on."

Peter Castleton, director of Verizon's consumer broadband services, said phishing and fraud are eroding trust in email as a medium. "A certification service, such as CertifiedEmail, enables us to help restore that trust and makes it easier for consumers to identify legitimate email messages," he said.

According to Goodmail, seven US ISPs are now using CertifedEmail, accounting for 60 per cent of the US population. Goodmail - which takes up to 50 per cent of the revenue generated by the scheme - will for now only approve mail sent by companies and organisations that have been operational for a year or more. Ordinary users can still apply to be whitelisted by individual ISPs, which effectively provides the same trusted status.

David Meyer writes for ZDNet UK

Is The XYZ Percent Commission The Winning Formula For Real Estate Sales (in a slow market)?

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 23:30:25 -0500

2 years ago in some of the hot markets across the country, the first step to marketing was putting a sign in front of the home. If that did not work, entry into the local MLS and Realtor.com would typically sell the home.
Consumers are not fools, they knew that real estate agents wanted the listing "no matter what" and would cut a commission to get the deal. If houses were flying off the market in record time, losing a percentage was worth not losing the deal.
Fast forward to the summer of 2007 and the smart agents are demanding XYZ(See Original Article) percent and refusing to list homes (and owners) that were not ready for sale and priced right. The good to great real estate agents can explain that going with a lower commission makes no sense at all. The discount in the commission means that corners may be cut in the marketing and maybe a point shaved off the buyers agent commission which could hurt opportunities for the home to be shown.
To take an idea that Ken Harvey has in his weekly column, the customer should be running to the full service agents in a slow market. Pay the XYZ(See Original Article) percent and get the most effective marketing possible. I know some can market the home for a lesser percentage and do a great job, but when push comes to shove, sellers should be very discriminating on the skill sets of their real estate agents.
And agents should be very discriminating on their sellers.
A couple of years ago when I started blogging I really thought the discounters would win the battle. The commission structure was out of whack in my eyes. But all that happened was that the cycle really did not reward the agents who demanded the full commission. A hot market does not need a big marketing budget.
But in the days of a slow market, asking for the XYZ(See Original Article) percent to get the word out as effectively and powerfully makes a great deal of sense.
During the late '90s and into the housing boom years, average commissions dropped steadily through the XYZ(See Original Article) percent level and stabilized about XYZ(See Original Article) percent.
One key reason for the decline was the relative ease of selling houses at ever-billowing prices. In the hottest markets, buyers lined up and fought bidding wars for houses. Some sellers asked: Why pay XYZ(See Original Article) percent to a realty agent when houses almost sell themselves - often for more than the asking price?
Now the market is starkly different - sales are down, inventories up, prices anemic - and a different approach to commissions may be gaining ground.
More realty agents are refusing listings that don't come with full XYZ(See Original Article) percent commissions. A handful of high-octane agents are even charging XYZ(See Original Article) percent to XYZ(See Original Article) percent as their standard rates - and they are doing well.via baltimoresun.com
Source: TheRealEstateBloggers