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Where's the second crash?
2009-09-16 18:21:00
The Bears who throughout the stock market rally starting in March continually cautioned on the "double dip" are now saying they were really bulls all along.We all understand that the economic future looks shaky... unemployment will remain high, commercial and residential foreclosures will continue, and the high deficits and weak dollar will put on ceiling on the recovery. Yet, September's stock market keeps rising to the incredulity of the Bears.The tide of rising asset prices lift all boats (assets, that is). Despite the warnings that housing prices can continue to crash up to 25% lower (per notable CNBC interview with Meredith Whitney on September 10 ), that will only happen in conjunction with a major stock market correction, which would resurface housing market doubts.The double dip scenario is quite real. One thing that Bernanke and the Fed have demonstrated over the past year is that they can actively manage the stock markets, and by extension, the assets markets, through pol...
More About: Economy , Crash

A Tribute to the World Trade Centers when they were normal
2009-09-12 08:02:00
I worked in the South Tower Floor 86 of the World Trade Centers from 1996-1998. All the every day mundane memories of my time there - walking from the Lexington line WTC station up through the underground concourse, past the Chas Schwab offices and up the fast elevators (sometimes they would suddenly stop midway and head back the opposite direction, which folklore blamed as the consequence of the 1993 garage bombing) - suddenly became etched into my brain after 9/11. I sometimes search for videos of the WTC neighborhood like it was a Facebook friend just to see what I remember. It's too bad nobody was bored enough to video the concourse like Google does on streets. This is a video that matches my memories; it's only worth viewing if you're like me and enjoy the memories of a place you know well. My (then) two year old son would play around the globe fountain, he loved the water. That fountain looks stark and minimalist because that plaza between the two buildings really d...
More About: Events , The World , Tribute

Join us at the Twitter Conference LA September 22-23
2009-09-04 10:07:00
We're delighted that our Breaking News Network is one of the event sponsors of 140 | The Twitter Conference in Los Angeles on September 22-23.The Parnassus Group (we like this friendly group a lot) has lined up a Hollywood-inspired roster of speakers that should provide a lot of personality for a tech conference.We enjoyed the first 140 in Mountain View last May, but thought the crowd was too social-media-centric. I noted that in a room of 300, only two of us represented real estate. We want to see all kinds of industry and small business participating at 140. Twitter and Twitter-based applications offer practical solutions to business development, and it's usually the people in business - real estate, retail, entertainment, hospitality, advertising to name a few - who figure all this out.As event sponsors, we're offering a discount code for registration at 140: type in 140LAPK. Be sure to get registered by September 6, after that the price jumps. ...
More About: Events , Join

Doomers have been predicting a downturn for six months, eventually they'll
2009-09-01 07:23:00
The problem with financial analysts predicting extreme results, whether it was NAR economist David Lereah suggesting the housing market bottoming every few months between 2006-2008, or pessimists like Dan Dieghan on CNBC saying markets will crash 25%-50% a couple of weeks ago, is they can't change their stripes. If a pundit is saying the current vapid state of the economy can't sustain the level of the stock market in April, it's hard to call to suddenly say, it's time to buy, without appearing hypocritical, or worse, dead wrong. The bear market rally since March, including the surprising July segment, has defied the doomers' predictions that the market has hit the wall with each down day (Google "Art Cashin pullback" and then "Art Cashin wrong" to see how many times Cashin has chirped). Sure, that downturn will inevitably arrive, but an average investor following the doomer pundits to stay in cash would have missed this rally.Doomers just aren't as credible any more because t...
More About: Economy

Introducing the Social Media Marketing Curriculum for Brokerages
2009-08-24 06:06:00
Outsourcing the Social Media Marketing CurriculumBrokerages now require social media marketing training to be relevant to the needs of their agents. However, it takes too much time and resources to hire somebody to compose social marketing tutorials, to constantly maintain ever-changing information, and to make them relevant specifically to the real estate agent.Over the last three years, Domus Consulting Group has trained thousands of real estate agents on how to use social media effectively with our renowned series of Social Media Marketing webinar workshops (links to testimonials and awards here) that are running continuously every week. Kevin Boer has religiously chronicled the workshops into a portfolio of user-friendly tutorials. We offer this portfolio to your agents at a nominal cost, co-branded to your company... see the slideshow.What's InsideDomus Social Media Marketing CurriculumView more presentations from Pat Kitano.For more detailsContact us for a demo and a peek at ...
More About: Blogging , How-To

Slideshow retrospective - a look back at "Web 2.0" Society from Spring 2008
2009-08-20 23:50:00
The following slideshows were created between May - June 2008. They still remain relevant today in context with how society is embracing social media.The New Transparent Society Society is changing in ways unimaginable even at the beginning of this decade. Personal transparency and marketing yourself without filters has become the norm for doing business. Funny to say, but this was a new concept for business in 2008.Web 2.0, a 2008 term, is now almost archaic and has been replaced by its counterpart "social media" which reflects more truly that the internet is not the Web any more, it is media.The Shock of the New Societal Transparency The New Society's New Rules - No Hard Selling This slideshow was nothing more than a primer for re-training Old School thinking on how to market oneself online.The Hard Sell Is DeadWhy Social Media Marketing works for Real Estate Although this slide show was created before social media in the form of Twitter and Facebook took off, it presents a few ex...
More About: Spring , Back , Slideshow , Retrospective

Social media feeds SEO
2009-08-19 21:33:00
Following up on the surprising Google juice of social media / RSS - based website PHX Housing News, Adam Singer at the Future Buzz lists 10 reasons why social media will feed SEO in a virtuous viral cycle:One thing we've experienced with the hyperlocal Breaking News Network is the power of the Twitter feed itself to brand the Breaking News website. We've discovered that local Breaking News websites are not portals that locals go to religiously; they use them on a "need to know" basis. For example, Breaking News is used to find restaurants on Twitter broadcasting special deals or checking the Events tab to find out what's going on in real time within the city. To keep the website top of mind, the Twitter feed (i.e. @BreakingSFNews) engages the followers of Breaking SF News to remember the site. @BreakingSFNews, as well as @BreakingLANews and @BreakingNYCNews all grew organically to between 2,200 and 2,500 followers over three months, adding credence to the concept that people at s...
More About: Social , Media , Technology

Google Indexing Surprise of New Sites - Getting to #1 in Two Weeks
2009-08-12 07:26:00
Google seems to have started indexing new sites quickly, perhaps in response to greater emphasis on real time search. Doug Lindstrom, developer of Northern Colorado Breaking News noticed how quickly PHX Housing News, a site up only two weeks, now ranks well on Google juice for a variety of terms, including Anthem Housing News (showing up #1) and Tempe Housing News (showing up #5). Since we're not purposely optimizing the sites for search, we're wondering whether the Wordpress blog platform is a natural SEO/SEM platform for Breaking News. Second, Search Engine Land has confirmed using URL shortener bit.ly's analytics that Google undercounts visitors entering websites via Twitter links by 500%-1,600%. If Google fixes this so Twitter links are recognized, Twitter feed-based Breaking News sites would even have higher Google profile. ...
More About: Google , Sites , Indexing

Describing "Twitter" with Brad Inman in May, 2007
2009-08-08 10:06:00
Yes, I've developed a Twitter rep...I don't normally do this for show, but I played back a YouTube interview Brad Inman and I did back in May 2007 and realized that I was describing how Twitter could be used for facilitating agent / consumer / community interaction at about the 2:20 mark. I did join Twitter in March 2007 (tx to @respres), but didn't start using it until late summer 2007. ...

The Return of the "Real Estate Investment Course"
2009-08-04 08:38:00
Arggh... they're back! ...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Real Estate Investment , Investment , Real

CRM 2.0 - Why Can't Social Networks Port into CRM Systems?
2008-06-06 01:59:00
Customer Relationship Management ("CRM"), one of the least attractive administrative tasks facing any business, needs an overhaul. Most systems have their users manually input and update contact data into data siloes that are currently  incompatible with social networking applications like LinkedIn and Facebook which can harbor that same base data and more. CRM systems have three tracking functions: Contact database - name, address, phone, email, etc. Contact history and details - dates of contact, discussion topics, contact interests and personalization, priority Tasks - next steps, deadlines, timeline, alerts, priority In addition, CRM systems provide management functions: Categorization of contacts, projects and tasks by folders, or better, tags.Data mining and metrics to monitor and elucidate user efficiency - contact growth rate, best use of time, close rate, benchmarking vis-a-vis other users Automated marketing - drip email campaigns, The real estate prof...
More About: Social , Technology , Social Networks , Networks , Port

More Corporate Attempts at Social Media
2008-06-05 00:41:00
Following up on yesterday's "social networking is a waste of time" IBM ad, here are two examples of corporations trying to incorporate social media functionality in odd ways: Clorox's Mom network - celebrating bleach! (h/t to Profy blog) I was looking up a word in the Merriam Webster dictionary and noticed I could socially "share" the word in various ways. And sharing the word on my Facebook profile actually works...
More About: Comedy , Social , Media , Corporate

IBM Ad Clueless on Social Media
2008-06-04 01:15:00
This new IBM commercial on YouTube sends a polarizing message that dismisses social networking as a waste of time. The reason I show this - the commercial somehow capsulizes a common reaction a Web 2.0-centric or blogging real estate professional gets from their colleagues... "why are you doing this?" I'm assuming since the ad passed the focus groups (IBM always uses focus groups), most people either liked or could relate to the commercial. I myself find it arrogant and puts IBM, a maker of social software, in a distinctly "not getting it" light. Even the casting of the scary cold, business-suited female boss and the "I don't want to work here" slacker dude perpetuates unseemly stereotypes. Unbelievable this actually passed IBM marketing, which btw, seems to have posted the commercial on YouTube along with other IBM commercials under the name IBMEIC. But that's me... what do you think? As a real estate professional, can you relate to this? Please comment, even a Twitter-like "I t...
More About: Social , Media , Clueless

Explaining the Impact of Twitter and Friendfeed - the Slide Show
2008-06-02 21:17:00
I've condensed my recent musings on Twitter , Friendfeed, Social Media 2.0 and Blogging 2.0 into a slide presentation.You may download the presentation Explaining the Impact of Twitter and Friendfeed - it has the links intact. Pardons, it's a 7mb file; I still don't know how to shrink collateral well. | View | Upload your own
More About: Show , Slide

Guest posts - Real Estate 2.0 Vendors and Changing the Rules of Mass Media
2008-05-30 12:36:00
I've been focused lately on the implications of Web 2.0, social media and Twitter on real estate, and by extension, online business marketing.  I want to refer readers to two guest posts this week: At HomeGain blog:HomeGain evolves with Web 2.0 - the real estate industry as a whole will remain hopelessly behind in incorporating the best of Web 2.0 marketing. Companies like HomeGain, as well as the usual suspects in the space - Active Rain, Trulia, Zillow, etc. - will begin to provide a comprehensive set of services ranging from online marketing to business management tools to guide the real estate professional through the minefield, and that will begin to kick off the elusive Web 2.0 revenue model. At Real Estate Radio USA: Mass Media and Real Estate Must Completely Change Their Business Models - Real estate agents were used to buying classified ads in newspapers, and mass media was glad to oblige. Now that print classifieds are diminishing in effectiveness, mass media pub...
More About: Vendors , Changing

Politics and Real Estate Don't Mix, Especially Now
2008-05-28 11:33:00
Social media, particularly the advent of microblogging platforms like Twitter, have loosened the inhibitions of bloggers. Since Tweets naturally revolve around personal, daily life, I do notice that the two big polarization topics, politics and religion, begin to be bantered... and quite often. Today's political environment has moved into a unique, politically charged realm that cuts across cultural lines. A real estate blogger/Twitterer, by positioning themselves politically one way or the other, simply threatens to alienate a significant portion of their readership by age, race, gender or religion (I'll purposely refrain from providing links to examples). Since real estate is a profession where political persuasion shouldn't really factor in too high in the hiring process, why alienate potential client bases? And it's not too hard to intuit the political character of the blogger, and all the more refreshing that they don't egotistically get carried away and take the pulpit st...
More About: Politics , Events , Estate , Real Estate , Blogging

New York Times Embraces Content Distribution
2008-05-27 11:34:00
Yesterday, I discussed how the Twitter API created the massive application set that has been driving Twitter's popularity. Each application redistributes Twitter content.Now the New York Times is opening its content to developers with an API to be delivered soon. Although no one knows exactly what Times content will be accessible, the API opens up developers to creating new applications using Times' content, say - restaurant reviews, sports, real estate classifieds. From Read Write Web:An API is a logical next step for newspapers. It will give developers access to their vast amounts of well-researched data, and allows the paper's brand to be spread easily across the web. More access to Times content and the ability to mash it up in new and interesting ways can only be a win for both readers and the paper."The web of the near-term future isn't about pages any more," wrote Marshall Kirkpatrick in his massive post on APIs in March. "It's about data, flying around, hopefully under ...
More About: Distribution , Content , New York Times

Twitter and Blogging 2.0
2008-05-26 02:46:00
Why Twitter became the application du jour The key to Twitter's wildfire adoption was in opening its API to developers who then built Twitter applications on top of the feeds. Mashable lists 140+ Twitter applications. Twitter.com isn't actually the primary recipient of its web traffic, Larry Dignan @ ZDNet says 90% of Twitter traffic are its API calls. On the negative side, Twitter now has famous network down times because too many users are accessing Tweeter via those applications.Why Twitter's popularity is crashing it Here's why: Twitter's broadcast model, although similar to "closed circuit" radio doesn't broadcast on a simple mass media standard, like radio airwave. Each "tweet" is stored in a huge database, and then must be broadcast across a variety of media - to mobile phones, websites, or one of the many Twitter desktop clients - and specifically to a group of followers. Problems arise, according to Om Malik when a burgeoning number of Twitterers like Scoble have 25,0...
More About: Blogging , Disintermediation

FriendFeed "Rooms" and Blogging 2.0
2008-05-23 11:49:00
I've been discussing the converging intersection between mass media and social media lately. Mass media strives to deliver the most content to the most consumers. Social media strives to deliver relevant, customized content within and among disparate, granular societal groups. The concepts of mass media are now making an imprint in social media by aggregating blogs, Twitter feeds and all those social networks into digestible channels. Duncan Riley calls it "Blogging 2.0". Like any other 2.0 paradigm that speeds up the distribution of data, bloggers are becoming disintermediated. The premise is simply readers of blogs don't need to visit the blog any more. There are feedreaders, Friendfeed, del.icio.us, Facebook, blog networks, Twitter and other arenas where blog content are "syndicated". By taking the conversation away from the individual blog, Riley claims the professional bloggers who make a living off of traffic will suffer. Why is this happening? Blogging 2.0 is a manifestatio...

Twitter integrated into mainstream media site
2008-05-22 01:15:00
On Sunday, I discussed how Twitter feeds (or variations) will be aggregated into channels by mainstream media. Yesterday's release that Summize, a Twitter search engine has partnered with Huffington Post to display Twitters by tagged subject is an indication to this effect. Here's how this works... each article in the Huffington Post has tags.Clicking on the tag brings up more articles on the subject, including specific Twitter feeds related to the tag.Unfortunately, Twitters related to real estate don't seem relevant, principally because the tag is too generic. This is a good try to attribute relevancy to Twitter feeds, but will work better with more detailed "Long Tail" tags, such as "Sacramento foreclosures". Here's an idea Huffington Post might consider for general tags to make them relevant - create individual Twitter feeds, such as @huffpo_obama that Twitter links to their Obama articles. Then, followers to @huffpo_obama (and there would be many) can Twitter comment about ...
More About: Media , Site , Integrated , Mainstream Media

VoiceCloud - No More Checking Voicemail
2008-05-19 23:55:00
Here's a list of pet peeves I don't want to do on my cellphone. All have to do with voicemail: 1) Check voicemail messages 2) Listen to voicemail messages 3) Have to remember to call someone back after receiving a VM (my hit rate is .500) 4) Have to check all my saved VM to make sure I didn't forget to call back someone 5) See 4 above... listening through all 10 saved VMs 6) Not having unlimited saved VMs I've been getting rave feedback from VoiceCloud, a voice-to-text tool that transcribes voicemails and sends them to your email address. Check out Roberta Murphy's review.  Here's an example: On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 10:47 AM, Tom wrote: I like your voice cloud  Pat.   Tom Patrick Kitano to Tom Hey Tom, we like the Lakers, particularly vs. Utah... On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 1:04 AM, <noreply@voicecloud.com> wrote: Hey Patrick, I'm ready to get home and watch the lakers play, I hope they could win just because ...
More About: Voicemail

Twitter Channels
2008-05-18 13:32:00
Cheryl Johnson expressed a common complaint about Twitter ... the noise:I used to enjoy twitter conversations immensely.  I backed off as it seemed more and more people were just "broadcasting" instead of "conversing".  Kind of like being in a room with 55 radios all turned on each to a different station.  :-0I think the trick for me would be to go back in and "unfollow" a whole bunch of people to get back to a more managable conversational level.Although I suggested "watching" the noise passively to get the full effect of the real estate conversation happening on Twitter, I also agree that it can be exhausting or time wasting tracking irrelevant conversations.TWITTER WILL EVOLVE INTO CHANNELS Like Cheryl's 55 radio station analogy, Twitter will eventually evolve into channels - technology, finance, real estate, sports - here are some scenarios: Finance channels will cover breaking trader news faster than the news wires. Twitterers broadcast China's Chengdu earthq...
More About: Channels

Why mainstream media should be developing online real estate magazines
2008-05-14 01:00:00
A few days ago, I noted that the new and most relevant online real estate magazines are best exemplified by blog properties like Agent Genius or Bloodhound. Mainstream media should be playing this card - building their own local real estate magazines - because they already have the consumer traffic base and can leverage their brand names to capture real estate readers.Newspaper publishers Screenwerk cites the local online newspapers' trend to "site diversification" in order to capture more relevant local traffic. Greg Sterling's main point: Newspaper sites cannot accomodate all the various local uses cases and newspapers need to build or buy (if they can) other sites that will. The Gannett Mom sites (e.g., IndyMoms) are a great example of the strategy. Make the newspaper sites as usable as possible but build other sites (demographically focused, vertical, etc.) for content and ad distribution. Real estate fits this paradigm. Newspaper sites or companies like Planet Discover...
More About: Media , Estate , Real Estate , Magazines , Online

REO / Foreclosure Online Resources
2008-05-13 10:56:00
Six months ago, I wondered why there were very few bloggers focusing on the REO/foreclosure markets. Last quarter, even in markets like Minneapolis not usually associated with the CA/AZ/FL foreclosure debacle, foreclosures and short sales accounted for 27% of home sales. Since the beginning of the year, a lot of resources have popped up -  International Listings compiled a comprehensive foreclosure investors' online resource guide of 100 sites.
More About: Resources , Real Estate Investment , Foreclosure , Online , Mortgages

The Real Online Real Estate Magazines
2008-05-11 10:55:00
I recently noticed Agent Genius's (new?) tagline " a National Real Estate Magazine". It's the perfect metaphor for how blogging is converging into mainstream media  under the guise of a "magazine" format. Magazine 2.0, using Wordpress, drives down the cost of an online magazine to insignificance, and positions Agent Genius as a real estate media property (in the old world, Oprah spent $20 million to launch her national magazine...)Note the intuitive difference between online newspaper and magazine. Inman News, Realty Times and RISMedia have always been positioned as news sources or networks with a mission to provide journalist quality and factual reporting (umm... some do this better than others). Magazines , on the other hand, aggregate articles and provide perspectives and subjective interpretations, making their online equivalent ideal for blogger authors. Both online formats attract readers in the same way people read both the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine.Gre...
More About: Real Estate , Online

Adjusting the credit score goalpost in an upside down market
2008-05-09 03:17:00
Forbes.com's Maurna Desmond's May 8 article calls Alt-A loans "subprime in sheep's clothing". In short, crumbling housing prices will push more mortgages into default simply because even relatively affluent borrowers may not stick around once equity turns negative. The "walkaway" factor has changed the reliability of credit scoring. The FICO score has been an accurate indicator for default risk. Now, the more important default indicator may be the personal debt-to-value ratio (that FICO scores do partially factor in), which requires a marked-to-market home valuation (and I don't think the credit bureaus use Zillow). Thus, the credit scoring system has loopholes... for example, a borrower with negative equity can accumulate credit card lines in order to continue to pay their bills on time and support their FICO scores, up until the day of reckoning when either their debt resources run out, or they just walkaway. I don't think the major credit bureaus can change their existing fo...
More About: Credit , Market , Score , Upside

Global cooperation to support the dollar
2008-05-08 11:56:00
The media has been sighing with relief that the greatest depression since the 1930's doesn't seem likely. However, global inflation remains an elephant in the room threat (Goldman Sachs analyst predicts $200 oil by year end ), and it's encouraging to see the world banks working in concert to ensure a stronger dollar to keep inflation at bay:Europe and US unite on stronger dollar (FT) All about the dollar - what the currency strategists think (despite the fact that today, ECB's Trichet isn't signaling lower interest rates on Europe's side in order to combat inflation, causing a dollar dip) But we're certainly not out of the dark forest yet, none other than George Soros claims we're in a bear market rally that will tip back into despair: The Wall Street Journal writes that Soros recently said ?The markets are breathing a sigh of relief but the fallout in the real economy is only now beginning.? Soros does not even bother to say that there is any light at the end of the tun...
More About: Economy , Cooperation , Dollar , Global , Support

Mortgages take the stage on real estate sites
2008-05-07 15:45:00
Homethinking, the leading real estate agent review site, adds an application for accessing lender data compiled within the Federal Reserve's Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) database for the year 2006. Although the data is old, it reveals geographic distribution of loan amounts, subprime usage and specific lender activity by county.The implication of the data is to understand the counties where subprime and its associated rate resets will be significant. Homethinking's Niki Scevak and Inman News' Matt Carter describe the data and impact in more detail. Up to now, real estate listings sites have relegated their mortgage offerings to affiliate mortgage applications that have become recognized by consumers as (annoying) lead generation tools. With mortgages so hard to get lately, real estate sites like Zillow look to offer more innovative products like their mortgage match up service to cater to the consumer. Another valuation modeling site Cyberhomes will eventually leverage the...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Sites , Mortgages , Real

193 unit San Francisco complex sold at $730/sqft.
2008-05-06 01:43:00
SocketSite, San Francisco 's property evaluation blog, reports on the $115 million record sale price for a new 193-unit luxury apartment complex in the new Mission Bay, valuing the units at $730/sq.ft. More interesting is the comment stream of readers trying to justify why the purchase was made - examples: What many of you seem to overlook is that UDR is a publicly-traded, investment grade REIT. Check their public filings - they recently borrowed $200MM at LIBOR+85. That's 3.6%. If that's the cost of capital on this project, it may well pencil out of the box.(According to this GlobeSt article, the cap rate is in the mid-4% range)If the developer can only sell those units individually for $600/sqft, why would they offer $730/sqft? They understand that rents are going to rise around here for the foreseeable future. Note that the sellers had planned for a 9-month lease-up but they were able to get all 193 units into contract in just 4 months. The purchase is puzzling conside...
More About: San Francisco Bay Area , Complex , Sold

Explaining the massive derivatives market and why the Bear Stearns bailout
2008-05-04 17:36:00
With the markets looking a little more rosier these days, we can only remind ourselves of the ghost of Bear Stearns ' bail out only 48 days ago. It's still being interpreted. On Saturday, Warren Buffett talked about the bailout, the problems with the derivatives market, and the declining risk of a financial meltdown, and mentioned an incredible statistic that I thought was a typo: If Bear had failed, one or two other investment banks would probably have collapsed within a few days, he said, adding that Bear had roughly $14.5 trillion of derivative contracts outstanding the day after it was bailed out. "The parties that had those contracts would have had to establish the damages that they could claim against that estate very quickly," he said. "Imagine the damage of everyone trying to unwind those contracts," Buffett said. "That would have been a spectacle of unprecedented proportions. It would have resulted in another one or two investment banks going down in a few days." ...
More About: Economy , Market , Derivatives