real/diaBlog - because real estate needs to change

Internet Marketing for Real Estate - Start Here

This is the official roll out of our Success Seminar - Page 1 of Google in 90 Days or Less.  The live seminar that we have been running is 90 minutes long and includes all 11 Steps of the Program described in detail.  But it doesn't have everything that this new online seminar does.

We have taken the entire seminar and put it online and included introduction videos to all 11 steps as well as screen capture videos of exactly how to do each step.  There are 32 videos in all.  And there are links to additional resources.  

If you want to capture real estate consumers that are searching for homes in your exact geographical location, than this is the most comprehensive solution available today.  It starts out by identifying your key target market area, walks you through the purchase and building of your site and finishes with action items specifically designed to make your site the best possible site as seen by search engines.  

It is the most powerful and comprehensive solution for internet marketing.  It is free.  It will allow you to personally control your own website traffic and once you have it up and running it will continuously drive traffic to your site.  

Here is a list of the 11 Steps that make up the Success Seminar.

1. Target Market Research
2. URL Selection
3. Purchasing Your Site
4. Content Management Software Install
5. Website Setup
6. Search Engine Basics
7. Business Pages
8. Front Page Design
9. Search Engine Submissions
10. Video Content
11. Link Building

Please take a couple minutes and sign up for access to the seminar.  Also, if you feel the urge, let others know about the site.  Our goal is to get as many agent sites onto page 1 of the search engines as possible and displace all the internet companies that are selling our leads back to us.

Also, there is an Option 4 Success Forum set up for everyone to share ideas and thoughts regarding this program.  Please use it whenever you want.  

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Can We Start a Real Estate Revolution?

We are going to try.  Two guys and a game plan.  That is what we have.  The internet and information is what we are going to use.  And hopefully we can build some traction and bring about change.  Here are the areas we want to change and the tools and strategies we are going to use to bring about that change.  Any like minded real estate professionals are welcome to join in any of the programs at any time.

1.  Replace Real Estate Lead Disintermediaries on Search Engine Results

You know the companies - Homegain, homes.com, trulia, zillow, realtor.com, realestate.com, househunt.com.  The list goes on and on.  They have internet marketing down but they are all the same.  The problem is they have been created for one purpose and one purpose only.  To slot themselves between the real estate consumer and the real estate professional.  And their goal is to extract money from the real estate professional.  

Our goal is to empower the real estate professional with information the disintermediaries don't want us to have.  This information along with our real estate experience and knowledge can be used to push those companies off of the search page results.  Those leads will then come directly to the agents that can actually help the consumer.  And they will be free leads.

The vehicle we will use will be Option4Success 90 Days to Success Program.  This 8 hour workshop will take any agent that wants to learn how to get to the top of the search page results in Google, Yahoo and Bing and show them step by step how to do it.  And once they get there it will show them how to stay there.  The program has been proven to work.  Now we just need 7-10 good agents for each search result.  Currently we deliver the program through the local REALTOR associations.  Contact us if you want to have this workshop offered at your local association.

2.  Increase Real Estate Professionalism

We have serious problem in real estate and no one wants to do what is necessary to solve it.  Our profession continuously ranks at the bottom end of all surveys when it comes to be professionalism.  So we have created the Referrals Xchange and VIP Cashback Programs to solve this issue.  Members of the Referrals Xchange agree to be reviewed after ever transaction by their clients.  And they agree to pay the consumer $500 to do it.  I know it sounds crazy but we have implemented the program and it works.

Consumers love the idea that they get to tell everyone how great their agent is.  And it gives them incentive to work with the agent that gives them this opportunity.  We are promoting this program to the general public and leads are coming in for the agents that are in the Referrals Xchange Program.  We challenge all good agents to join the network.

 The second program we developed to combat the issue of professionalism is the VIP Cashback Program.  This program gives full service agents the ability to compete directly with discount and limited service agents on a level playing field.  Without having to advertise and promote discounts openly, the agent can offer a quasi-discount in the form of a rebate to home sellers as well as home buyers.  When a consumer is non-committal to the full service because finances are an issue, this program will almost certainly be the determining factor when they select the agent they will trust to handle their transaction.

Combined these two programs will drive consumers directly to the most professional agents in their marketplace.  And the ability to refer any consumer into these programs will give agents the ability to work with more customers that up until now had to rely on little or no third party information regarding the ability of their agents.

3.  Stop Giving Money to Brokers Who No Longer Earn It

Right about 3 or 4 years into the real estate business, most real estate professionals who want to expand their business usually have to make a decision.  Stay with their current broker and continue to pay the fees and splits they agreed to when they were new or go to another broker and start all over.  One choice is expensive and the other is risky.  This has been the business model of big brokerage for years.  Charge fees, make agents promote the brokerage and keep recruiting so that more agents keep paying more fees. 

But this model is slowly dying as the best and brightest agents search for a better answer.  We think we have one of the better answers to this problem.  The Market Advantage White Label Brokerage Model.  Build your own brand, don't pay for services you don't need or don't want, keep 92% of every dollar you earn, never have to move again, recruit agents to work for you not against you.  It has been working for our agents for 3 years, it will work for you if you have a true entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to control your own future.

Getting to Page 1 of Google in Less Than 60 Days

Google Juice - The Proof

So I got to the front page of a one word search in google in under 60 days.  Here is the google search page for Broadlands.  And here is the registration page for my url which is broadlands1.com.  I bought the url at the end of November of last year.  I put up a wordpress.org site on December 1st, 2009.  On January 27th the url first hit page 1 of google.  It has since been as high as #9 and currently sits at #10. 

These past 4 months have been spent working on a this project as well as 2 other projects that are focused on getting agents the one thing that they want more than anything else - high quality real estate leads.  Leads that are targeted and qualified.  Our main focus has been creating a program made up of duplicatable online systems that agents can use to generate leads that will drive their business.  Here is a preview of the program.

Option 4 Success - The Program

And we are working on being able to prove that these systems and techniques work and work well.  The first test was the 60 day SEO rule for web site creation.  We wanted to be able to claim that we can get to the first page of search results for a targeted google search.  We wanted the search to be real estate targeted but not so targeted that the traffic would be too low to generate enough leads.  We wanted to do it with a site that needed little input from the agent.  And we wanted to be able to do it multiple times so that we knew it wasn't just a fluke.

More Proof

The Broadlands site was one test of the program.  This search word was highly competitive with over 600,000 sites in direct competition.  It also gets a high amount of traffic.  There are between 200 and 1200 google searches a day for that one word.  And although this search is not real estate specific, it gave us a good idea of our upper limits of the 60 day rule.  

A more real estate focused search that we optimized for was Homes for Sale in Sterling.  This site gets much less traffic but it is highly focused.  Our site is currently #4 on the page and ranks higher than zillow and homes.com sites.  (Beating out these leads generating sites that charge agents for leads is one of our biggest goals).  Getting to page 1 for a search like this can take as little as 30 days.  And getting above the fold and eventually into position #1 can be done a lot quicker as well.  

And as an example of how little an agent needs to do to build a site that gets to the top of a google search here is an example using the search Brambleton Va.  Our site is currently in the #5 position and there is almost no content on the site.  

The Target Agent

The program has been developed with a certain agent in mind.  An agent that has been doing business but wants to have more control over their lead flow.  An agent that does 6-12 deals a year but now wants to step up to the next level and reach the 24-30 deal level.  An agent that knows that online marketing and advertising are the best tools for growing a business but doesn't have the time to write a blog post every day or keep up with the latest SEO techniques. An agent that wants to spend money but needs to know that what they spend money on will come back to them 5, 10, 20 fold.  They don't want to waste time or money but want to put resources toward building their future business.  

It is not for agents that like the technical aspects of internet marketing.  It is not for agents that have more fun with the online aspect of real estate instead of the deal making aspect of real estate.  It is not for agents that are new to the business and are starting from scratch (although it is great for a newbie working with a good mentor that is in the program).  It is not for agents that already have control over their entire lead flow with existing marketing.

This is the very first public description of any part of the Option 4 Success program.  There will be more details to follow about the other parts of the program and how all the parts work together to generate leads.  I will also describe some of the ways the program can be used to improve your current lead conversion and closing rates.  Who wouldn't like to secure 2 or 3 more buyers a year with little or no effort.  If you are interested in the program, drop me a line, and I will go over the details with you one-on-one.  Or you can sign up directly on the site and I will follow up with you.  We are currently looking for agents in certain geographical locations as well as sole-proprietor brokers that meet certain minimum criteria.

Preview of Loudoun County Year End Real Estate Statistics

 With the new year only a couple of days away, I wanted to take a preliminary look at how the Loudoun County Real Estate market of 2009 compares to the market of 2008.  There have been many developments over the past year that have influenced the real estate market.  Here are a couple that I feel have made a huge difference to our market:

Tax Credit for First Time Home Buyers - This waste of taxpayer money has created a complete imbalance in the low end inventory levels.  The problem with the market in Loudoun is not demand, it is inventory.  Adding more buyers to the market segment that has had multiple offers for over a year is a total failure.  When you see the inventory levels you will see what I mean.

Bank Indifference - There is currently a huge shadow inventory level in Loudoun County due to the fact that banks refuse to put foreclosed homes on the market in a timely fashion.  This will keep price levels down as home buyers realize that there is still a bunch of vacant homes that need to be sold over the coming months.  This strategy by banks will increase the length of the recovery by 2 or 3 years.

Interest Rates - Rates have remained at historically low levels as the Federal Reserve has continued to be a huge buyer of mortgage backed securities.  This program is set to expire in March of 2010 and then normal market forces will take over and presumably move rates higher.  In the meantime, the rates have kept demand levels higher as the cost to borrow money remains low.

Here is a good breakdown of the government intervention into the housing market.

Recession - Bad news for the country means good news for Washington.  And Loudoun County is no exception as it has reaped the benefits of the democratic efforts to save the economy by increasing the size of government.  Unemployment levels are half as much as other areas of the country and as the government continues to expand, the jobs will be here.   And people will move here to find employment.   

So these four factors continue to push inventories down.  As of today the number of homes for sale in Loudoun County is only 770.  On Jan 8th of 2009, inventory in Loudoun was at 1471.  This is a decrease of almost 50% on top of the previous year decrease of 38%  

But prices for the full year are almost unchanged.  The average sales price of a home this year was $362,349 vs. $367,557.  This is only a 1.4% change.  And the number of homes sold has gone down 13% from 2008.  This year 4283 homes have been sold with 3 days left in the year.  Last year 4927 homes were sold.  And even more striking is the drop off in home sales over the last 4 months of the year.  Since September 1st, only 802 homes have gone to closing.  Last year 1327 homes went to closing in the final four months.   That is a drop off of 40%.  

In my next post, I will take a closer look behind the numbers and try to explain why the market is acting like it is and give you and idea of what to expect the beginning of next year.  Also, I will have charts and graphs of year end numbers once the year is over.   

Short Sale Tax Implications for Homeowners

If you are a real estate professional that deals with sellers who are trying to sell their home short than one of the most asked questions you probably get is regarding the tax implications of the short sale.  Up until now I haven't had a very good answer or a direction to point a homeowner regarding this topic. But now I do and so do you.

The Internal Revenue Service publication that handles this exact situation is Publication 4681.  The name of it is Cancelled Debts, Foreclosures, Repossessions and Abandonments.  Although it doesn't say short sales, a short sale is a cancelled debt.

In a short sale of a house, the cancelled debt is the difference between what is owed and what the bank gets at settlement.  When the bank agrees to this loss and the homeowner does not have to repay it, they will almost certainly report the cancelled debt to the IRS.  The question is does the homeowner now have to report the cancelled debt as income on their tax return.   Prior to 2007, the answer was yes but Congress changed the code and now the answer is a little more complex.

Here is an easy to understand explanation of what the publication says:

If the loans were the original loans on the property and the house is your primary residence, you do not have to claim the cancelled debt as income.  

If you refinance the loans and used any excess money to improve the home (and you can prove it) than you do not have to claim the difference as income.

If you used your house as an ATM and took money out to buy a car, vacations, clothes, pay off other credit cards, etc, than you will have to claim the amount that you took out that wasn't used directly to improve the property as income.

If the house is not your primary residence, than you might have to claim it as income but that is much trickier and you should consult an accountant.

This is just an explanation of what the publication says and is not accounting or tax advice and you should always consult a tax professional if you have any questions.  

But IRS Publication 4681 is definitely a publication you should consult concerning the tax implications of a short sale.

Underwater Mortgages - An Interview on Nightly Business Report

A  story that has been getting alot of media attention lately is the impact on homeowners of owing more on there homes than the home is worth.  Usually referred to as being "underwater", this financial situation is becoming a serious problem throughout the country. 

It has led directly to the explosion of short sales and voluntary foreclosures and indirectly to the drop in consumer sentiment and a pull back in the American consumer's appetite for spending.  

I was lucky enough to interviewed by Stephanie Dhue of Nightly Business Report yesterday and the segment ran yesterday on PBS nationwide.  It is the second segment in this video.

Here are several stories regarding underwater mortgages.

The report from Deutsche Bank thatunderwater mortgages will hit 48%.  This was quoted in the NBR report.

An in depth report on the effect of underwater mortgages and foreclosures by CoreLogic.

Report that currently 1 out of every 4 mortgages in America is underwater.

Real Estate News and Blog Post Aggregation - Realdiggity

As some of you already know, I have been working on a site that people can use to get all the news about real estate in one place.  I orginally set it up using drupal but it was too cumbersome and bug ridden.  I have found another site called slinkset and now I have it up and running on that platform.  

Here is the new Realdiggity.

I have added a lot of rss feeds from the best of the real estate blogs and websites.  But if there are some that you want me to add let me know. Or you can sign up and add ones that you feel are worthy of inclusion.

Also, there is a widget you can add to your blog or website that will feed the stories directly to your site so your visitors can see the headlines.  I have it in my sidebar so you can check it out.

You can use the site to rank the stories you feel are the best much like social bookmarking sites like digg and reddit.  You can add a story from a non-real estate site that has a real estate specific story by using the submit button.  You can also add a bookmarklet that will automate the submit function and fill in the title and link automatically.

I would like this site to be free of all advertising of homes for sale.  There are many other sites already available for that.

Please use this site as a resource when dealing with topics regarding real estate.  This includes tips on buying, selling, loans, interest rates, foreclosures, short sales, statistics, etc.  You don't have to sign up, but that would be cool too.

Feet Dragging by Banks Leads to Murder

Over the past weekend a murder occurred in the Lowes Island subdivision of Sterling.  This is the same Lowes Island subdivision that is home to the golf course that Donald Trump recently purchased.  A teenager was killed at a house party at 2:30 in the morning on Sunday (Saturday night).  Buried in the end of the story was this piece of information that in my opinion was the real story:

Neighbors report that the house where the party occurred is in the foreclosure process and the couple who owned the house have already moved out and were allowing their college age son to live there.

And the very last paragraph had even more information regarding the owners of the house where the party and the murder took place:

Further research into public records show that the listed residents of this house, Jose and Wilma Vargas, also owned another house in Sterling – located on 104 Almey Ct. The bank has already foreclosed on this house and it is for sale by United American Realty.

I am not saying that the banks are directly responsible for the murder of the teenager but it could be argued that their failure to secure a property that has obviously been abandoned by the homeowners and used as a frat house by the college son was a very crucial contributing factor in this tragedy.

One bank was able to foreclose on the same couple and secure their other house over 2 months ago.  Why not this property?  Where is this bank? 

Most of the time we hear about foreclosures and abandoned properties in a neighborhood leading to decreased values, perhaps squatters occupying vacant houses and other public nuisances.

But this story shows just how much damage the banks are doing to our neighborhoods.  Their indifference has become a problem for all Americans.  Their reluctance to take over abandoned properties and foreclose on homeowners that have no intention of keeping their homes is an epidemic.  

We need to force these banks to do the responsible thing and do it now.  We can't wait for the banks to clean up their balance sheets so they can take over these properties without become illiquid.  We need to come up with a solution that takes the  properties from these reluctant property owners and prevents further damage to our neighborhoods, towns and count.

Is Congress Trying to Undermine a Real Estate Recovery?

Maybe it is just me but if I was a buyer in today's real estate market and I heard that Congress was trying to increase the $8,000 first time buyer tax credit to $15,000 and include all home buyers, I would seriously consider holding off on making a purchase.  Why you ask?  Well, there are many different reasons and they all stem from the uncertainty of what Congress will eventually do, if anything.  

Congress is notorious for floating out many different versions of a bill and then watering down one of them in order to get it passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives and then get signed by the President.  This causes many great ideas and sound solutions to become ineffective and a waste of time.  

We don't have to look any further than the current $8,000 tax credit.  At one point it was a $15,000 credit that would have been available to all buyers.  But that bold, decisive bill that would have had a tremendously larger impact on home sales was weakened and become the current credit that has already had one major change and is set to expire on December 1st.  And there is no sign that the credit has done anything to improve the housing market.

So now they are considering either extending the current credit for another year, increasing the size to $15,000, adding a $3,000 credit for refinances and/or letting all home buyers get the credit.  And there is no indication of whether or not the new limits and credits will be retroactive and how far back they will go.  

The last credit was retroactive to Jan 1st when it was signed into law as part of the stimulus package in the middle of February.  How far back they make the next credit is anyones guess.  And that is the problem.  What if they pass the bill and don't make it retroactive?  What if the actually bill gets debated and changed and watered down again and doesn't get passed until the fall?  What then?

What should a prospective buyer do if they want the full $15,000 credit and want to be guaranteed they get it if in fact that is what Congress passes?  They have to wait and see.  That is the only way to guarantee you get the credit because no one knows what will happen.  The people that bought a home last year have to pay back their tax credit because they didn't wait.

Congress cannot make swift, decisive moves that will help the economy.  Congress doesn't do what is right, they do what will get them re-elected.  They need to answer to special interests, not constituents because special interests give them the money to get re-eleted.  Congress can't make hard decisions and instead they have partisan battles and pass bills with partial solutions that are ineffective.  

And this latest battle over the tax credit will showcase Congress at its finest, working to confuse the public, change the rules, cut some people out and create another finger pointing debacle.  Much like the TARP that didn't buy any toxic assets and a stimulus bill that doesn't stimulate.

I ask again, is Congress trying to undermine a real estate recovery?  I say yes.

UPDATE:  I will be at a function this Friday with Rep. Frank Wolf (R), the congressman for my district here in Northern Virginia.  I will try and corner him and ask him some pointed questions regarding the tax credit and efforts to help the housing recovery instead of continuing to create indecision in the minds of the public.

Get Your Brokers License You Slacker

Last Tuesday I signed up for the online version of the Virginia Brokers Licensing Class.  It represents 180 credit hours of real estate education.  It is one of the steps needed to get a brokers license.  The other two steps are:

1.  Actively engage as a real estate salesperson for 36 of the previous 48 months.

2.  Pass the exam

I just finished the 180 credit hours today.  In my case it turns out that 180 credit hours is in actuality about 30 hours, maybe a little less.

There is no excuse for any active agent in Virginia that has been in the business for 3 years or more to not have their brokers license.  

I finished all the practice exams and read over 400+ questions and explanations.  Time is not an issue.  It cost $850.  That should not be an issue unless you aren't actully selling houses.  I did it in my house.  Getting to the class is not an issue.  No excuse works except for you are a total slacker.

Bing, I'm In and So Should You

Last week my Google Reader sent me a post written by Karl L. Gechlik of  makeuseof.com .  I get more good tech tips from this site than any other I subscribe to.  His post is one of the better ones for the non-geek bloggers out there on how to submit your site to Google.  But the reason I liked it was it has the link to submitting your site to the new Bing search site from Microsoft.

How To Submit Your Website To Bing & Google For More Traffic

If you have a blog and you haven't submitted your site to Google yet, than you definitely need to immediately.  And if you haven't submitted it to Bing, I suggest you do so sooner rather than later.  I am already seeing an increase in traffic from organic searches on Bing.

Update:  Here is another reason to submit your site to Bing.  

Bing Continues Taking Share

As Goes California, So Goes the United States

A wise man once told me "As goes the California economy, So goes the US economy".  With California such a large part of our economy, it only makes sense that until that state gets its act together, the country will continue to languish.  And by the looks of it, that isn't going to happen for quite some time.  And it also looks like the federal government is in no hurry to help out.

That same wise man also said that "As housing goes, so goes the economy".  That is another reason why this recession/depression will continue as long as President Obama wastes time on issues such as health care and green energy.

Think about it.  What is our biggest expense every single month?  Housing.  What is the biggest concern that most people have every day?  Housing.  What is the one area that has been the biggest drag on our economy for 3 years.  Housing.  And the biggest drain on consumer confidence?  The price of our houses going down with no end in sight.  

Yet Obama continues to push for national health care and green energy.  Does that matter if you are facing foreclosure?  When you are selling your house short to move into a tiny apartment?  When you have no more equity in your house and no hope for every getting back to zero?  When the majority of baby boomers are going to work until they die because the equity in their homes and retirement accounts are at zero.  How are they going to afford nationalized insurance and an electric car.

Am I missing something?