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Glenn Kelman and Celebrity 2.0
2007-12-14 01:07:00
Redfin further brands itself as the geek of brokerages with its Real Estate Scientist program. And Glenn Kelman gets to publicize it on the Today show tomorrow... and I'll be the first to predict that the interview will tie in Microsoft, Seattle and other icons of geekdom. Talking tech is a good fit for Redfin.The thing I find interesting is how Glenn, by virtue of two TV appearances, has become the national celebrity for consumer real estate. I can't think of anyone else real estate related who has had similar exposure. Real estate has had no celebrities with Q Score, tech has Mark Cuban and Steve Jobs, stocks has Peter Lynch and Jim Cramer, retail has Howard Schultz, etc. Celebrity 2.0 Microcelebrity is the phenomenon of being extremely well known not to millions but to a small group ? a thousand people, or maybe only a few dozen. As DIY media reach ever deeper into our lives, it's happening to more and more of us. Got a Facebook account? A whackload of pictures on Flick...

Fed rolls out Plan B... and it doesn't work
2007-12-12 23:16:00
Since the lazy rate cut didn't work, the Fed went to plan B the next day. The world's Central Banks flooded the markets with cash to encourage lending. The coordinated actions with Europe's top central banks is a tacit admission by the Federal Reserve that lowering the federal funds rate, as was done Tuesday, hasn't accomplished enough to unclog credit markets that have frozen in fear over subprime mortgages and other securities that have been badly mispriced. The Fed is pushing liquidity into the system, rather than having banks demand it. It supplies extra liquidity at whatever price the market deems, rather than setting an interest rate first and letting the amount of the loans be determined by demand from banks. The market knee jerked but top rate cut evangelist Jim Cramer among others says plan B is bogus (if it were for real, why would bank stocks drop?) and the traders agreed, dropping the market back to where it started. Plan C coming soon...
More About: Economy , Work , Plan B

Fed rolls out Plan B... and it doesn't work
2007-12-12 23:16:00
Since the lazy rate cut didn't work, the Fed went to plan B the next day. The world's Central Banks flooded the markets with cash to encourage lending. The coordinated actions with Europe's top central banks is a tacit admission by the Federal Reserve that lowering the federal funds rate, as was done Tuesday, hasn't accomplished enough to unclog credit markets that have frozen in fear over subprime mortgages and other securities that have been badly mispriced. The Fed is pushing liquidity into the system, rather than having banks demand it. It supplies extra liquidity at whatever price the market deems, rather than setting an interest rate first and letting the amount of the loans be determined by demand from banks. The market knee jerked but top rate cut evangelist Jim Cramer among others says plan B is bogus (if it were for real, why would bank stocks drop?) and the traders agreed, dropping the market back to where it started. Plan C coming soon...
More About: Economy , Work , Plan B

A lazy rate cut crashes the market
2007-12-12 00:50:00
Most traders fully expected the Fed, always reluctant to cut rates, to make that 25 Fed Funds rate cut today, but the markets harbored expectations that a 50 point cut would really signal the Fed's intention to fight recession. Well, even though the 25 point Fed Funds cut was expected, the Fed was also faulted for dropping the Bank's discount rate (the rate banks can borrow from the central bank) only 25 points and not 50, so the markets crashed as traders almost act to "punish" the Fed for its tepid action to ease the credit crisis. Only four short months ago, hardliners were calling for keeping interest rates high to stave off a weak dollar and inflation. They were even implying that a recession would be good for America, like a cold shower. They cited "moral hazard"; bailing out the subprime victims who acted inappropriately - the lenders, the borrowers and the buyers of subprime laced CDOs - would create a precedent that would encourage new risky behavior. In the end, the h...
More About: Economy , Market , Rate , Crashes , Lazy

Before tomorrow's rate cut - market looks to 2008
2007-12-10 11:37:00
As traders look for the Fed interest rate cut tomorrow, the spectre of rising inflation will rear its ugly head with the release of CPI and other inflation indicating government data later this week. Last week, I discussed why the world's Central Banks will try to control inflation and prevent the fall of the dollar. Bernhard Eschweiler, head of JP Morgan's Central Bank Group, explains why it is difficult to "crash the dollar" because countries managing their exchange rate with the dollar are locked into holding dollars: The principle mistake that many commentators make is the assumption that central banks can separate the currency allocation of reserves from their exchange rate objectives. In practice, this is often not the case, especially for the large surplus economies in Asia as well as the oil-exporting countries. These countries all follow some sort of dollar standard, whether it is an outright peg or a dirty float. So, when they intervene to prevent their currencie...
More About: Economy , Market , Rate , 2008 , Morrow

Social networking to sell a car or a house
2007-12-07 21:18:00
Starting this article on a personal anecdote. I'm selling our old car, a Lexus RX300 after purchasing a new one and decided to price it as low as possible for a quick sale. This approach mirrors a particularly effective strategy being used to sell homes in San Francisco - high demand product, low inventory, price it low for multiple offers. Well, a car is not a house. Despite clearly having the best priced single owner 1999 Lexus RX300 on CraigsList SF Bay Area, $2,700 below BlueBook, all callers were seeking a discount on the price. It's the ingrained negotiation ethic that accompanies a transaction between strangers... and it's an annoying part of the sales process. Classifieds and car listing sites like Craigslist are currently the most efficient way to advertise a vehicle to a wide group of strangers. But this got me to thinking how much easier it would be to sell a car through a network of friends and acquaintances, particularly since offering a good value is ingrained as...
More About: Social , House , Social Networking , Networking , Sell

Central Banks cooperate with interest rate cuts
2007-12-06 12:16:00
Bank of Canada dropped its interest rate 25 basis points on Tuesday. Today the Bank of England cut its interest rate after five hikes since August 2006. Since all the world's Central Banks are collectively lowering interest rates to ease the credit crunch, the dollar in theory won't crash relative to other currencies. I'm no economist, but the prospect of global stagflation - runaway inflation combined with a weak global economy exacerbated by the credit crunch - might be a risk. Stagflation has never happened on a global level before. Here's my take on the global risk. The subprime debacle has demonstrated how credit problems arising primarily from the US can impact the global economy, both on a macro- and micro- level. The solutions for the global crisis are also being tackled by the Central Banks in unison. The Armageddon hawks seem to believe that a global crash will be preceded by a series of falling dominoes - first, the US recession and dollar devaluation, then collapse...
More About: Economy , Interest , Rate

Builders' land fire sale will crash land prices in affected areas
2007-12-05 02:37:00
After the news broke yesterday about Lennar dumping 11,000 properties at 40% the price they paid for it, I did a little research on the evolution of this institutional vulture market. I was frankly surprised to see how much overpriced land was on the builders' books. I had assumed builders would have hedging strategies for land development, but then I realized that Wall Street and real estate companies reside in different worlds with regards to risk management... (try finding a Wall Streeter working at a builder) The key consequence of these land dumping deals is their sheer volume will reset the pricing benchmark for properties in speculator-ridden regions in Florida, California, etc. It may have the stunning effect of crashing certain markets down to the same 60% off peak levels where sellers still held out with hopes they could somehow recoup something. Dec. 3, 2007 - Money.CNN Builder dumps homes in Morgan Stanley deal / Builders pull the trigger and finally sell land at ...
More About: Economy , Real Estate Investment , Sale , Fire

Blogging primers
2007-12-03 21:46:00
Some of the work we do with brokerages is getting their agents to understand how powerful blogging is as a marketing medium. Over the weekend and today, I noticed a rash of articles that puts a unique spin on "Why blog?" From Common Craft: Blogs in Plain English - (great application of instructional video)Blogging is dead? According to whom? Blogging is fundamental, an archetype of Web 2.0 and the most basic self expressive media there is. Social networks aren't eclipsing blogging, they are complementing blogging. (h/t to Greg ) Why blog? Daniel Rothamel answers the loaded question all bloggers hear: "How many leads are you getting from your blog?" He produces a hand held video (his hand is pretty steady like a track cam, how does he keep his mug centered?) that reveals his personality - peripatetic and forthright (and we're both bball fans). The real reason your agent should be blogging Kris Berg doesn't treat her readers as potential leads, she honors them as her future ...

Complicity of Brokers
2007-12-03 02:24:00
This is not an indictment on brokers, nor on capitalism. This string of events is the product of a capitalist system where, at a given point in time, each transaction made was logical and moreover, commonly accepted practice. At each stage, someone was well compensated to lubricate the transaction.Only afterwards did the consequences of selling a subprime loan to a Nevada home buyer indirectly result in a small Norwegian town unable to make municipal payroll.EventReasoningReason it unraveledLender/mortgage broker sold subprime loan to home buyer"Everybody should own their own home" / Mortgage broker collects commission by tapping into a new market of home buyersYes, housing prices skidded... but a key reason not discussed for the initial faith in subprime products was public belief that credit would continue to be available, i.e. there would continue to be credit (refi) products they could transition into after their first ARM reset. The credit crunch was unexpected, although it see...
More About: Economy , Brokers

Three predictions on stocks, the Fed and housing
2007-12-01 02:33:00
Why stocks won't move up further before December 11 Friday started with a morning market rally based on Bernanke's remarks on Thursday that seemed to concede further rate cuts after November's credit crunch induced market slide, and on a subprime bailout program. However, traders realize that if the markets move too high and seem healthy, the Fed won't cut rates on December 11 as is currently expected. Therefore, traders will sell on any bad news just to maintain conditions for rate cut momentum... today, the hint that the economy is tanking brought down the morning rally from DJIA +160 to zero at about 3:00pm EST before rebounding a bit. On and after December 11, the market will respond to whatever rate cut the Fed delivers, but it would be no surprise if the market eventually begins to wither in order to induce further rate cuts during the winter. Why the dollar may not crash like all the gloomers say Gloomers posit that more rate cuts will consequently devalue the dollar,...
More About: Economy , Stocks , Housing , Predictions

No Real Estate Blogs are in Bloglines' Top 1000 Blogs
2007-11-29 23:51:00
One of the first of the many internet theories that bloggers learn is that of the Long Tail.  Proposed and made popular by Wired's Chris Anderson, The Long Tail asserts, broadly speaking, that the internet as a commerce platform can service any product need no matter how small, arcane or trivial. The simple reason is a buyer and seller of the product can easily "meet" each other online. Further, the theory purports that there's a lot of money to be made by servicing the whims of the smaller Long Tail markets. The controversy surrounding the theory lies in its applications... there are many exceptions to the rule.The Long Tail is best exemplified by Amazon.com, which sells not only the top 100 best selling books, but also makes significant revenue on the next 100,000 or so titles.Read Write Web points out that the Long Tail doesn't apply to blogger revenue and posits that the Long Tail of bloggers make no money. What this means is most bloggers who write on a Long Tail topic ...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Blogging , Blogs , Real

Disintermediation of the mortgage broker
2007-11-27 11:36:00
Short history of mortgage lending How mortgages are processed Innovation driver / Catalyst pre-1970 Banks and S&Ls (and before that, insurance companies) managed the loans directly with the consumer 1970-1980 Mortgage lending extended to mortgage/credit companies (Countrywide started in 1969) as alternatives to banks. Eventually these operations adopted retail branch operations. New business model 1980's Banks begin to offer wholesale rates to the new layer of mortgage lenders and brokers who could focus on servicing the consumer client. The "PC revolution" carved up the vertical operations of mortgage banking. New business lines are formed to focus on certain aspects of the loan processing. Loan securitization makes it easy for mortgage lenders to set up shop. 2001-2006 By 2004, mortgage brokers are participating in 68% of home loan originations. But banks have realized and regret they lost control ...
More About: Disintermediation , The Future , Broker , Intermedi

Warriors are the new Suns
2007-11-27 01:18:00
I used to envy Phoenix for their excellent blogger corps and its most exciting NBA basketball team. Tonight's Warrior s vs. Suns game was an offensive blast - the Bay Area now boasts a faster, younger, better passing, more combustible heir to the Suns - so now I can finally say our local team is the most exciting game in America. I love the way the uber-quick Warriors can make the last two MBA MVPs,  look like defensive liabilities. During the 4th quarter, the whole offense was posting up Nash.Blogging at night becomes more difficult during basketball season. And Phoenix is still the RE.net hub.

Arguments for the Rate Cut
2007-11-26 00:42:00
There seem to be two principle arguments on the Fed's direction on interest rates. Against the rate cuts are those in the "vicious cycle" camp: rate cut > stocks rise  > dollar deflates > inflation threatens > stocks crash > further rate cut necessary > repeat cycle until the inflation death spiral crashes everything. For the rate cuts are those who believe that preemptive action is necessary now so that its economy stabilizing effects will stave off recession in 2008. Lawrence Summers, ex-Treasury Secretary under Clinton, submits the most reasonable argument I've heard for the latter case. I normally don't reproduce an entire article, but this is the best description of the economic problem and the potential solution that I've seen for today's slippery market. Wake up to the dangers of a deepening crisis Three months ago it was reasonable to expect that the subprime credit crisis would be a financially significant event but not one that would threat...
More About: Economy , Rate

See any new theatrical release online free!
2007-11-25 16:04:00
Did you know you can now watch just released feature films free without interruptions on new online movie sites that are as easy to use as YouTube? I didn't know until yesterday. Hollywood and the MPAA may as well give up. Free feature length films online were the final pot of gold in the war on online piracy. Finally, the Pandora's Box of free online movies, served up instantly in streaming format, has opened and is proliferating. The masses, including me, have heard and read about pirated movies offered up via Torrents and other file sharing protocols but have abstained from downloading these properties due to: 1) illegality, 2) threat of viruses and other malware within the download, and 3) well publicized lawsuits by the MPAA against individuals who were caught file sharing. Now, sites like Movies-on-Demand.tv, Online Cinema.org and Movie6.net make watching streamed full length features as simple and safe as watching YouTube. It does this without any downloading, without cu...
More About: Disintermediation , The Future , Release

Cultural blogging
2007-11-23 15:26:00
Real estate agents whose native language is Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean (and others) have the opportunity to engage their own native communities in California and other metropolitan areas with high density of new immigrants. One good strategy for foreign born RE agents is to create hyperlocal blogs in their native language that document the activities of their native communities - social events, celebrations, new restaurants and shops, film/video reviews, places to go - and supplement the blog with commentary on local real estate. The mission is cultural service and positioning oneself as a hub for that community. It's a soft sell that real estate agents aren't used to practicing - instead of blaring that you are a real estate agent looking for leads, show the reader that you're trusted as a community leader. The readers understand who you are and your profession, and may appreciate the fact that you're not hard sell. This facilitates natural networking and eventual co...
More About: Blogging , San Francisco Bay Area , Cultural

Market bifurcation everywhere
2007-11-21 10:37:00
NAR reports this morning that housing prices increased in 62% of metropolitan markets in the US. This statistic confirms market bifurcation on a national scale that is also mirrored across regional and local markets: Market Bifurcation Stable Suffering National scale Regions primarily between the Coasts that didn't experience the housing boom High demand regions - California, Florida - where housing prices boomed along with building starts State scale (California) High demand cities with strong economies - Silicon Valley, Los Angeles Overbuilt exurban regions - Central Valley, Inland Empire Local scale (San Francisco Bay Area ) Cities with strong economies with little subprime exposure Cities where speculating investors and subprime buyers bought in anticipation of an expanding economic base around the Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego (Global scale) Countries hit by housing price acceleration, fueled ...

No analyst firms cover real estate. Bloggers do.
2007-11-20 01:14:00
It's one of the businesses of Wall Street to research and make portfolio recommendations. There is a cottage industry of analyst firms that survey industries like technology, media and finance, and aspire to consult with both the sell-side brokers and the buy-side portfolio managers at corporations and investment/pension funds. Before the internet, the research analysts at the investment banks and the analyst firms held proprietary research and data that they could leverage either for more transactional revenue - trading and consultative services like investment banking or M&A - or, in the case of the analyst firms like Gartner or Forrester, subscription revenue. The internet as data equalizer seems to threaten the analyst firms' livelihood by making it more difficult to provide data of proprietary value. (The same parallels can be made about the analyst industry to journalism, another research intensive industry) Now all the analysts are writing blogs, and Forrester itself ...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Blogging , Disintermediation , Bloggers

Real estate coaching 2.0
2007-11-19 01:23:00
Real estate training and coaching isn't even at Web 1.0; its most basic business model relies on personalized one-on-one coaching methodology.  Brokerage training programs rely on a series of classes. Well known California based programs like Mike Ferry, Buffini and By Referral Only (all headquartered within 50 miles of each other in SoCal) rely on a hierarchy of coaches to personally deliver the message of their programs - the strategies and tactics of managing a professional career. And frankly one-on-one coaching works because it is customized to the individual, but it costs more and doesn't scale well. Real estate training should harness the Webinar - a virtual classroom where students can show up in their pajamas and coffee logged in on a web conferencing system like Webex and participating on a parallel phone line. The advantages: Students: Students prefer Webinars for convenience and don't need to commute to a classroom setting.Training content remains the same. Th...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Coaching , Disintermediation , Real

Bloggers' sleep deprivation
2007-11-18 12:13:00
Finding the time to develop a blog is a big hurdle for the new blogger. I decided to use the time after 9:00pm to devote to this blog because I tend to function creatively at night. With blogging comes business opportunities, and I started chopping off sleep hours from 7-8 hours per night down to about 6 on average. I also began to take a 15 minute nap in the afternoon, which I realized I could do quite easily, even sitting upright, like a narcoleptic. At first, this change of lifestyle made me wonder about adverse health effects, but I realized the shorter sleep cycle did two things consistently: 1) I could fall asleep within 10 minutes of hitting the sack, and 2) I slept uninterrupted and deeper for at least five hours. Today's New York Times Magazine discusses the culture of sleep and how the 8-hours of sleep paradigm may not be the most natural. These articles personal development blogger Steve Pavlina wrote about sleep also put me at ease that my new regimen is on the right t...
More About: How-To , Bloggers , Sleep

Foreclosures are spiking, but few bloggers are following the foreclosure bi
2007-11-17 12:25:00
Foreclosures are big news - Google Trends shows the news reference volume on the word "foreclosures" crescendoed this summer and has continued to be a key economic focus.  However, the business of foreclosure - how real estate companies are mobilizing to address the transactional issues surrounding a spiking REO market - is surprisingly not being documented on the internet. Blogs are the best way to distribute timely information of an evolving niche of the real estate business. At one time in the not too distant past, there was a Carnival of Real Estate Investing. It went on hiatus with its final series in July as the last real estate investor gave up on a bleak housing market, and the bloggers disappeared too. The foreclosure business is still rather opaque... with such a swelling market, it has to be assumed there are huge opportunities evolving from crisis, but the resources to monitor this business in real time are few. Here's a quick list of foreclosure business resour...
More About: Foreclosures , Real Estate Investment , Foreclosure , Bloggers

Yesterday Zillow, today Loopnet partners with newspapers
2007-11-14 00:27:00
Get in line... it looks like the major listings websites are partnering with the newspaper publishers for syndication purposes. Next up after yesterday's Zillow publishing partnership announcement is Loopnet, which will distribute its showcase property listings to 100+ newspaper websites. From the Loopnet press release: With this new distribution deal, exposure for LoopNet?s Showcase Properties has dramatically increased, significantly enhancing the value of advertising a property on LoopNet through a Showcase Property Listing. Showcase Property Listings now receive triple the exposure of standard listings by Premium Members on LoopNet.com, as well as 10 times the exposure of Basic Listings. The quid-pro-quo: Loopnet gives their Showcase Property advertisers more bang for their buck and the newpapers receive commercial listings content. Here are a few more commentaries on the Zillow / Newspaper partnership:Zillow teams with Yahoo's Newspaper consortium... without Yah...
More About: Technology , Newspapers , Today , Yesterday

Old media, meet Zillow!
2007-11-13 00:14:00
Last month, I discussed the new lead generation paradigm shift: Content will be traded, packaged and bundled for leads/ads. Here's a good transactional example - Zillow has content in the form of a well trafficked consumer destination for automated home valuation data and newspapers have listings they sell to Realtors. Well today, Lloyd Frink announced Zillow's foray into the old world of newspaper real estate ads by "bundling" these traditional ads together with optional placement of the online ad on the Zillow site. How might this work exactly?  For example, real estate advertisers who currently buy classified listings in their local paper will be able to choose to have their listings and open house information shown on Zillow.  Not only will this contribute to the number of for-sale listings buyers can browse on our site, but also has the potential to create an incredibly comprehensive online source of open house information, by locality.  And this is just the ...
More About: Media , Meet

Tapping into Creativity during times of Crisis
2007-11-12 13:32:00
With every potential crash imaginable happening around us - housing, dollar, recession fears, inflation, spiking oil prices, Pakistan, Iran (no links required, just check the front pages of the online dailies) - it's time for self-examination to figure out the opportunities that always appear with crisis. I've always felt there are two ways to tap the subconscious for those epiphanies that lead to new thinking. The first method is essentially passive - meditation and other mind blanking processes to open up subconscious thought are effective daily practices. The second method is active and so mentally aggressive that it seems the antithesis of the mind blanking techniques - it's based on exhaustively writing down every thought about a topic until you're grabbing at straws to come up with ideas. The power of subconscious thought then wells up once the mind has started to disconnect from the logical and traditional ways one understands a topic. Start with "How to discover your l...
More About: How-To , Creativity , Times , Crisis , Tapping

Real time online gadgetry at NAR
2007-11-10 14:32:00
For NAR next week, the bloggers will be out in force covering the proceedings: Meet the Bloggers at the Incredible Agent booth #3444 NAR Expo, Sands Convention Center Las Vegas on Wednesday and Thursday. See schedule at MLPodcast.  I'm scheduled for Wednesday @ 4:00-5:00... I'd enjoy meeting up with you there. Friend Jeff Turner always alerts me to more online gadgetry that facilitates "real time" reporting. The most commonly used system is Twitter. Blogger Twitter force - Dustin says: So far, we have Jeff, Joel, Jessica, Keith and Myself prepared to twitter the NAR 2007. Follow along, or better yet tweet with us, at Jeff?s summary site: NAR Updates. (<<< pk: this update site looks like NAR Central to me) Jeff discovers, through a Twitter comment by Daniel Rothamel, the Utterz application. Utterz simply allows users to upload real time audio comments to a web or blogsite by phoning in the comment to the Utterz phone #. Technorati Tags: NAR2007, blogging, t...
More About: Events , Time , Online , Real , Real Time

Macs are better, I'm a convert
2007-11-08 11:56:00
Last month, I purchased a Macbook after my last PC notebook died... and there's no turning back.The big consumer barrier to purchasing a Mac has been the premium pricing. Machinist's Farhad Manjoo explains how Macs are comparably priced with PCs by factoring in the resale value of used Macs, a similar argument BMW uses with regards to its high resale pricing claim. It's well documented but here are the most obvious advantages I notice as a long time Windows user switching to a Mac: Boot up time - 30 secondsMicrosoft Vista is rumored to be a mess of an OS - so it compels users to switch to the elegant Mac OSNo crashing, although sometimes one needs to "force quit", which so far does what it purports to doWith the Mac/Windows OS interface, apparently one can run the Windows-only based real estate applications On the flipside, you need to get used to the one-click mouse (versus the right/left click of the Windows mouse). On the Mac, pressing the CTRL key in unison with the click f...
More About: Technology , Convert , Vert

Must see video from the TED conference
2007-11-07 02:31:00
TED, the all star conference that brings together prominent people from all walks of life to discuss ideas, hosts a variety of captivating videos on their blog.  This video of Larry Lessig's 2007 TED talk on the contradiction between user generated content ("UGC") and copyright is enlightening with hilarious examples (I generally don't watch too many videos for the same reason I don't watch TV... not enough time, but these TED videos are killer). The main point is our children are indeed creating and producing content using remixes or mashups of various media. And the copyright police are explicitly, i.e. by suing random, unlucky consumers who downloaded copyrighted media, and implicitly , i.e. using commercials that indict intellectual piracy as a crime, telling society that the new content creators are law breakers. This is corrosive to society and breeds the teenager-class cynicism almost everybody can relate to. The "control" of content becomes more futile as society ...
More About: Video , Technology , The Future , Conference

Social networking maintenance made easier
2007-11-06 00:15:00
I've often professed that the real estate professional's physical network is migrating to online social networks for a number of reasons: Ease of using networks to develop referralsAbility to virally network quicker and more efficiently through other contacts' networks because you know who they knowParty game- like online environment breaks the ice in business relationships The big problem has been the proliferation of a variety of social networks. I've always counseled that the three most used and trusted networks for real estate are Active Rain, Facebook and Linkedin (excluding the "widget" communities like MyBlogLog).  Social networking is a transcendent form of email - maintaining various social networks is like monitoring 7 unsynced email addresses. Google, the world's 300-pound internet gorilla and rankled by Facebook's success, stepped up to trivialize Facebook with its recent announcement to create an open social networking standard. By procuring the immedi...
More About: Social Networking , Networking , Made , Maintenance

The Mythical Foreign Investor in US Real Estate
2007-11-04 14:56:00
The Sunday New York Times reports on the influx of foreign buyers of new Manhattan condos... no surprise with the falling dollar making US real estate look cheaper, and the worldwide attraction of New York as a cosmopolitan nexus. Beyond this article, there are literally no recent news about foreign real estate investors in the US despite the fact that rumors abound. I could find only one topical article from National Real Estate Investment online about foreign investment in smaller cities. I cited several older resources on foreign investment in the US within July's US real estate looking attractive to foreigners. We know Asians like to buy condos in brand new high rises - it's the customary practice in Tokyo, Seoul or Shanghai. As San Francisco repositions itself as a West Coast Manhattan and gateway to Asia, the 25,000 or so new condos coming online in the South of Market area would seem to be attractive to the Asian investor. The condos will appeal to superrich part-time re...
More About: Real Estate , Investor , Foreign