BlueLaVaMedia.com is very pleased to announce our brand new video virtual tour made specifically for syndication to popular websites such as YouTube, Facebook, Google video, AOL Video, MySpace, social networking sites and more! These new features are now included with the purchase of any BlueLaVaMedia Exposure Engine. Pushing real estate listings and local business virtual tours to these heavily populated sites not only brings more traffic back to our interactive 360 virtual tours but it also help local real estate agents come up more in the search engines as well as rank better naturally. The longer our videos stay online the more they begin to rise to the top of the search engines thus making it easier and easier for people to locate the real estate agent or local business they are s... 11/29/2008

BlueLaVaMedia proudly announces the Insurance Documentation Virtual Tour Service! Did you know that when making an insurance claim a photo is worth as much as an actual receipt to your insurance company? For the last ten years I have been hearing our virtual tour providers around the world show growing interest with the concept of the “home inventory tour”. To date only a few have actually put a program like this together. Now we are very pleased to announce that after many meetings with Traverse City insurance companies BlueLaVaMedia has officially launched our Insurance Virtual Tours. You can read more about this exciting new addition to our tour offering by visiting our home inventory virtual tour page found here: Traverse City Insurance Virtual Tours “As we get closer and closer to ... 10/20/2008

BlueLaVaMedia producer of Traverse City Virtual Tours is proud to announce our Tour Sticker marketing blast which is the latest addition to our virtual tour marketing program. What is a tour sticker you say? You should ask Susan Hintz a Traverse City real estate agent about the tour sticker. Back in the day tour stickers were SO popular that Susan would get in trouble if she forgot to leave one behind on the listing sign. In fact, back in early days, Real Tour Vision actually sold virtual tour stickers by the hundreds to virtual tour providers all over the world who then turned around and placed these little vinyl stickers onto the real estate yard signs of every home that received an interactive 360 virtual tour. What happened to the tour sticker? Well that is a very good questions to ... 10/14/2008

The Traverse City Market - Just how bad is it?  Is it as bad as the media makes it sound?  You tell me.  Take a look at the recently published statistics for sales as of June (Year to Date) of the Traverse Area Association of Realtors below.    ** UPDATED July 3, 2008 ***  JUNE YTD No. of Res. Units Sold Avg Selling Price  Median Sale Price  2008 860 $194,676 $146,250  2007 980 $215,584 $157,862  2006 1,029 $217,237 $162,650  2005 1,078  $205,715 $158,000  2004 1,061 $205,978 $155,000  2003 997  $189,605 $144,000 SOURCE: Traverse Area Association of Realtors The average price of a single family home have only dropped 11% from the high in 2006.  The number of units sold is down 19% from the high in 2005.  That is only down 12% from last year.  Overall this is not nearly as bead as the me... 10/08/2008

It's my belief that the very best outcome would be to keep homeowners in their homes, whether that's through loan modifications, short refinance, or some other workout plan. But many of these homeowners are facing chronic, long term hardships that make modifications virtually impossible. If homeowners in arrears can demonstrate that the hardship they are facing is acute, and of a limited duration, then (in my opinion) we as realtors have a certain obligation to assist homeowners with the task of staying in their homes. Short sales should be a last resort. I know that lenders and loan servicers are working as hard as they can to offer solutions to homeowners in arrears. The problem, as often as not, is that these homeowners typically withdraw themselves from communications with their len... 10/06/2008

Do you believe in Ghosts?  I guess this is appropriate considering we are so close to Halloween.  I was asked yesterday by a friend if I believed in ghosts and to her amazement I said, "I don't exactly know if I believe in ghosts but I do have an interesting story that is pretty convincing". This is a true story and it did happen... no joking.  Basically I am a pretty logical person and I rarely get superstitious or believe in ghost stories but one night (about 20 years ago) my brother and I were basically camping in an old guest quarters of an old home located on a pristine wilderness like lake 16 miles west of Traverse City in Northern Lower Michigan. As I said this was a detached garage/guest house of an old home built by the Wagner family (of Chicago) back in the early 1930's.  It h... 10/06/2008

Sometimes local real estate agents ask us why we here at BlueLavaMedia use still image photography for our traverse virtual tours. Many real estate professionals haven't done virtual tours in a long time and only remember the old 'fish-eye' technology from years back. Just the thought of virtual tours turn them off on the whole idea of using virtual tours! I thought it would be great to share why 'fish-eye' is not a preferred way of capturing virtual home tours. 1. You can't use the camera's flash. - This is the biggest reason by far. No flash makes dark halls look like caves and windows are almost always blown out whiteness. Why would you utilize a technology that prohibits your ability to utilize a primary feature of a camera? 2. You can’t print the images. Virtual tour images should ... 09/28/2008

REAL ESTATE Tax Crackdown on Second Homes To help pay for the housing bill passed this summer, Congress has changed the rules for vacation homes and rental properties. Here's what you need to know about paying the piper. By Mary Beth Franklin, Senior Editor From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, October 2008 Congress has pulled the rug out from under vacation-home owners planning to squeeze tax-free profit from their second homes. Under current law, you could sell your primary residence and take up to $250,000 of profit ($500,000 if you file a joint return) tax-free, as long as you owned and lived in the place for two of the five years leading up to the sale. Then you could move into your vacation home or a rental property and, by living in it for at least two years, get a second b... 09/18/2008

Register your cell phone on the do not call list for 5 years today or your number is going to be released to telemarketers. You can do it by calling 1-888-382-1222 from your cell phone. It takes less than a minute. If your thinking of buying a home or land in the Traverse City area give me a call! Mike St. Peter Greenridge Realty- Traverse City Phone 231-288-7879 Live - Work - Play 09/05/2008

  BlueLaVaMedia is very pleased to announce today the release of our Agent Listing Packet. The information packet is an informational piece that can be used by all BlueLaVaMedia real estate customers to help with a more seamless listing presentation.   Our listing information packet can easily customized by our customers then finalized into a PDF file for print or email distribution. The pack reviews the powerful marketing tools that all BlueLaVaMedia customers are currently utilizing and explains their benefits to the prospective home seller looking for an agent to list with.   Our information packet contains information on our powerful marketing tools utilized by the agent including:  High end listing photography 360 Interactive Virtual Tours Listing syndication and distribution Singl... 09/03/2008

Daily Real Estate News  |  August 26, 2008Is the Worst Over? Analysts Have Mixed Views Some analysts reacting to the news that home sales rose a healthy 3.1 percent in July compared to June say the increase predicts further improvement. Others are more pessimistic."We are not yet ready to call the current levels a bottom but clearly most of the declines are behind us," says Adam York, a Wachovia Corp. economist."The good news is the trough is behind us," says Harm Bandholz, a New York-based economist with UniCredit, but Bandholz warns that tighter lending standards and rising foreclosures will continue to put pressure on housing prices.Real estate consultant John Burns, who advises large builders and investment firms, says he thinks supply and demand will remain out of whack until there... 08/29/2008

This morning Carolyn and I went to the Traverse City art show.  Fist I want to tell any one reading this blog in the Traverse City area; if you didn't get a chance to go, please make it a point next year.  This is a wonderful event and highlighted artist from across the region and was very well run.  Some times I have to shake my head at my own skepticism.  We came across artist after artist that reused and recycled what most of us would consider trash into some of the most beautiful artwork you can imagine.  From broken glass that was turn into murals on old windows that caught the light and made us stare in awe, to beautiful lawn sculpture made of nails welded together, to old sterling spoons and forks made into hangers, door knobs, and jewelry.  It just goes to show when you think ou... 08/16/2008

As usual every morning I opened my email via my new Apple iphone (a way cool device everyone should have) and I finally read some good news about Real Estate.  It was an article posted on RSI Medias website (See full article below).  In a nut shell it stated that 60% of the country has had an increase in home prices recently.  Oh my god...why isn't anyone telling the rest of the world about this.  It seems that all we hear is the doom and gloom on the news.  I quit watching the news 2 months ago and I am a better (and happier) man for doing so.  In addition my business has picked up drastically in the past month.  Take a few minutes to pass on this information as it is finally some good news. ___________________________________________________________________________________  By John Be... 08/14/2008

BlueLaVaMedia, property marketing firm and producer of Traverse City virtual tours is very proud to announce the coming and going of 100 Virtual Tours. As soon as the snow melted at the end of April up here in Traverse City it was as if a gun went off. Jim Blue, manager and virtual tour coordinator of BlueLaVaMedia, literally went from making cold calls and working on practice virtual tours to receiving phone calls and being behind on completing “Real Tours”.These are certainly great problems to have in such a unique market. In my personal experience of bringing new virtual tour providers on all over the world, I know that a lot of people think that property marketing is falling by the wayside due to the gas and real estate crisis. Fortunately for us virtual tour providers out there it ... 07/28/2008

 Traverse City July 16- August 3, 2008 HORSE SHOW BY THE BAY If you have never been to a world class horse show here is your chance. Horse Show By the Bay features over 1200 Horses and $350,000.00 in prize money. These are some of the premiere horse in the country taking part in this three week event. Check out there site www.horseshowbythebay.com Admission is only $5.00 and kids under 5 are FREE... The horse show is being held in a great location between the Grand Traverse Resort and Turtle Creek Casino. On Bates Road directly off of M 72. The Grand Traverse Casino Resort is the offical hotel for the event and is offering free shutles to and from. www.gtresort.com  The Turtle Creek Casino is brand new and now open for business. They are also offering free shutles to and from the event.... 07/21/2008

Traverse City's 4th Annual Film Festival will be held July 29, 2008 - August 3, 2008. This year will be highlighted by Madonna and her new film that will be shown at the restored State Theater. There will also be a big outdoor screen set up on West Bay that will be showing movies. This is a great festival that brings in thousands of people. There are still rooms available, but they are booking fast. You can get more information on the Film Festival at www.traversecityfilmfest.org Traverse City is one of the Greatest places to live in the country. If you would like more information on Traverse City and the properties available please give me a call or email. Mike St. Peter - Greenridge Realty - 231-288-7879 mstpeter@greenridge.com 07/15/2008

Team BlueLaVa is proud to announce an addition to the BlueLaVaMedia Team. Bruce D, age 32 will be taking on the role of regional sales manager and will be responsible for additional BlueLaVa Tours in the Northern Michigan market. Bruce will be filling in an existing gap at BlueLaVaMedia and will be making use of the RTV Inner-Circle marketing pieces that are being created to market directly to businesses such as hotels, golf courses, campgrounds, B&B’s, restaurants and so forth. With BlueLaVa’s Traverse City real estate virtual tour load reaching nearly forty tours a month and growing, having a full time dedicated person out there selling business tours will be a wonderful asset to the company. Bruce comes to BlueLaVaMedia as a well seasoned B2B sales representative and has well establi... 07/13/2008

It is now more important than ever to make sure your customers are properly linking up their 360 virtual tours. If you are not already following up with your customers then you need to start this as soon as possible. Stop potentially bad habits, oversights or improper linking of your virtual tours before you have a mess on your hands. From the very start of our TC Virtual Tour company I noticed that many of our customers either used the wrong link altogether or did not link the virtual tour onto ALL of their sites. Remember that many real estate agents will have a personal website-- www.judylevin.com, a local company website-- www.cbgreatlakes.com , an MLS system-- www.taar.com and sometimes an national site-- www.ColdwellBanker.com . Your single online 360 virtual tour MUST find its wa... 06/28/2008

Traverse City Virtual Tour Company, BlueLaVaMedia is pleased to announce that all 360 virtual tours are now delivered in both FLASH 2D and JAVA 3D based technology! It is now more important than ever to be sure that the end user is able to fully enjoy the interactive media that we create for you. By using both Flash and Java based technologies we are able to guarantee that virtual tours are enjoyed by an even larger audience than ever before without the need of stopping to download a plug-in. Our Java technology displays virtual tours in a 3D environment and optically corrects the rooms free from distortion in a way that the eye would normally perceive the rooms. Our Flash technology displays the rooms in a 2D environment but does not optically correct the room leaving end users with a ... 06/28/2008

On Wednesday, May 7th team BlueLaVa packed up and hit the local Traverse City Board of Realtors trade show entitled Strawberries and Toast. This show is an annual event that typically brings several hundred Traverse City real estate agents and many vendors from in and around the Grand Traverse region. We were fortunate enough to be the only Traverse City virtual tour company to attend the show this year. With Jim being what many would call a local living photography legend here in Traverse City, the people continuously flocked around our booth to see what new and exciting powerful property marketing tools were now available. For the most part people really loved the concept of our single property websites and our PanoRiders™. The next big hit of the show was our cute business card sized... 06/28/2008