Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Is Your Personal Belongings Inventory Up to Date?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in General on June 9th, 2011
This is a time when natural disasters are on the rise. In addition to disaster preparedness, one thing that gets overlooked is a detailed list of all your belongings. This can be a lifesaver if your home is ever lost to fire, flood, or other disasters.
If you were to lose everything in a disaster, you home insurance may cover everything lost; however, without documenting all your belongings, it may never happen. It is critical if you are filing a claim to have documented back up in the form of a personal belongings inventory.
A basic handwritten list stored in a safe deposit box is perfectly acceptable. However, if a home is destroyed, the pen-and-paper list may be destroyed as well.
Now there are websites available to help homeowners create an inventory record-keeping list that can be stored on remote servers and accessed from anywhere. One site, DocuHome.com, allows homeowners to upload room photos and tag furniture and belongings. Users can then create an inventory spreadsheet from all of the tags and enter values of the items.
Regardless of your inventory method, remember to include everything from bedsheets to jewelry to furniture. Just like backing up your computer, don’t wait until disaster strikes and it’s too late.
Idea Associates Partners with Barrett Design for New Store Opening
Posted by Sibet B Freides in General, Real Estate Sales on March 17th, 2011
Idea Associates recently collaborated with Johnna Barrett of Barrett Design, Inc. to design the new retail location of Shoes for Crews in Las Vegas, Nevada. Interiors by Barrett Design, Inc., graphics and signage by Idea Associates.
The sole that changed the industry
Shoes For Crews® began producing slip-resistant footwear in 1984 and through superior technology quickly became the industry leader. Over the years they’ve stayed on top by working hard to deliver an unbeatable product at a great price. Of course customer safety and satisfaction is their ultimate goal and they deliver the world’s best slip-resistant footwear.
Take a look for yourself, let us know what you think!
Did The Google Algorithm Change Effect You?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in General, Marketing, Real Estate Sales on March 2nd, 2011
Google recently announced one of the biggest changes to its search algorithm to date.
The soul purpose according to Google is to improve the quality of search results with the most relevant sites. People are immediately worried about what will happen to their rankings and keywords. To the relief of most, a lot of sites won’t see any kind of change.
The new algorithm takes aim at the content farms that have longed plagued the Internet. These are sites that usually contain a ton of links with information that is not original to that particular site. We have been hearing about the importance of quality and original content and this recent change reinforces that. Google will now give more credit to sites that appear to have the highest quality content and is the original source. This change also makes quality link building more important as well. It is also advised to add a little diversity to your website such as videos, photos, or audio.
Don’t forget about writing. Having a website with poor copy is an almost guaranteed way to rank lower in search engines. Not only will Google deem your content low quality, but also bad copy will not encourage link building from other sites and social network shares.
So what does this mean? Don’t panic if you’re a real estate blogger or your company has a blog. Just make sure you are producing something worth reading and it’s original.
Is Now The Time To Buy A Home For Retirement?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Demographics, General, Real Estate Trends on February 11th, 2011
According to a recent Smartmoney.com article, retirees are starting to show increased interest in buying homes again, most of which are in the nations hottest retirement markets such Palm Beach and Hilton Head.
According to the article, most retirees are starting to think that buying their retirement dream home now is a wise investment. I know we have all been talking about how baby boomers are retiring more modestly because of economic troubles but those who are still looking for luxury are starting to feel a sense of urgency in the market. Attractive mortgage rates and low home prices are causing those able to consider buying before retirement. According to the article, the NAR ‘s Housing Affordability Index shows that 2010 was the best year ever to buy a since 1970. This has caused boomers to consider buying that retirement home even if they are years away from living in it.
Those purchasing luxury retirement homes at the moment have every intention of living there for the foreseeable future. That is one thing that the housing market crash has made certain. Buying a retirement home as an investment at this point would seem very risky, especially for individual buyers. Plus, most of the popular retirement locations wont see a recovery in home values for a while. It really depends on what market you’re in. Miami is going to see home values continue to depreciate while other locations with fewer inventories will start to see a turnaround sooner.
A Strong Job Market Is The X Factor For Real Estate Recovery
Posted by Sibet B Freides in General, Marketing, Real Estate Economics, Real Estate Trends on February 2nd, 2011
According to a recent SmartMoney.com article, there were a record one million foreclosures last year. Home prices are still falling and underwater properties are at a record high. As the article puts it, “everyone hates homes.”
Whether you’re a buyer or a seller, you hate the home asset class right now. You can’t get reasonable financing for a purchase or you can’t get a reasonable offer. So, does this feeling represent the optimal time to buy a home? The answer is yes if you share the view of investors like Warren Buffet who believe that you should buy when others are fearful. A major problem with this ideology is that the consumer view of homeownership has changed. Purchasing a home is still an investment but buyers today are focusing more on it being a suitable home for their specific desires.
This is where demand comes in, the single most important factor in a recovering housing market. More specifically, this is where a recovering job market is imperative. As the article mentions, there are several factors that are dictating the health of the housing market but the largest factor resides with unemployment. Consumers aren’t going to buy a home without a job and those with jobs will refrain because of a perceived lack of job security. Experts have varying opinions and predictions for the job market. Regardless of what happens, this will continue to be the “X” factor for a housing market comeback.
Investor purchases will not revitalize the market. It’s going to take the efforts of the buyers looking for a place to call home.
Gloomy Building Predictions For 2011
Posted by Sibet B Freides in General, Marketing, Real Estate Economics, Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Trends on January 7th, 2011
Builderonline.com has some predictions for 2011 and most of them are not positive.
Despite its 10 predictions for next year, Builderonline.com smartly warns that any predictions now should be taken with a grain of salt. There are simply too many important components and major parts to the building industry and if expert predictions were always right, we probably would have had a better idea what was coming in 2008.
Probably the biggest factor that will continue to dictate the health of the real estate market is the unemployment rate. A high unemployment rate and the continuing threat of job losses do little for the confidence of homebuyers who would normally be participating in the market.
Experts also believe that the foreclosure situation plaguing the industry is only going to get worse in the coming year, especially at the beginning. For builders specifically, finding credit will continue to be a challenge and costs are going to increase due to the growing costs of commodities.
A big challenge for the coming year will have a lot to do with company staffing. Those builders who have cut large portions of their staff will have a hard time hiring skilled workers to meet any quick spike in demand. The article references quick push to build homes that took advantage of the tax credit last year. As far as business plans go, tt is predicted that companies will fall into two different camps. There will be one camp that focuses on being profitable now, and one where the goal is to sustain for the coming years. This will have a direct affect on job loss and gain in the industry.
Homeownership Is No Longer Expected In America
Posted by Sibet B Freides in General, Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Trends on January 6th, 2011
It has always been the American dream to own a home. In fact, the government made it clear that it was our duty as citizens to own a home and the banks were there to convince us that it was the best investment we could ever make.
With fixed mortgage rates hovering around 4.8% percent and home prices at an almost all time low, there is still a lag in the housing market. Experts will attribute it to a struggling job market, which undoubtedly plays a role, but I think Steven Bergsman of Inman.com has the right idea of why home purchases are so low despite favorable conditions.
Bergsman’s theory centers on the changing concept of homeownership. In the modern American life, homeownership has taken a backseat for several reasons. One being that the Gen Y buyers entering the market are scared to death to own a home after seeing what just happened to their parents. It’s hard to tell a young person buying a home is a smart investment when foreclosures are everywhere and borrowers are paying off mortgages worth more than their home. He also makes the point that in order to take a job in a new city, you have to sell your home, which is not easy to do. We now see ownership as a restriction in our lives. It prevents us from the betterment of our careers and living situations.
Another great point made by Bergsman has to do with the condo market. As he states, once the government and banks began forcing the idea of homeownership, they eventually began to focus on the large city dwellers. This is where condos came in. Developers took aim by building high-end homes for these urban dwellers to buy. This may explain one reason why the condo market is struggling so badly. Those urban dwellers may have been the first ones to realize that owning a home isn’t always the best thing, nor is it out expected anymore.
Is Linkedin Catching Up With Facebook?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in General, Marketing, Real Estate Trends, Social Media on December 29th, 2010
I am often asked what the benefits are to using Facebook versus LinkedIn in social media strategies. I usually explain the difference between the two and let that person decide where they should be focusing their efforts.
Recently I read a very interesting blog about the differences in the two social networks. The blog, published on Social Media Today, made the insightful observation that professionals are using the networks in two different ways. Professionals that are looking to network themselves individually tend to do so on LinkedIn instead of Facebook. LinkedIn was designed to be the professional network. This observation holds true but the interesting point is that more businesses or companies as a whole, develop a Facebook page. So, your professional individuals are networking on LinkedIn while their company pages are on Facebook. It seems that a concentrated effort on just one of the social networks would be more beneficial than the current norm.
On November 1, LinkedIn made a strong attempt to steal those wondering professionals and their business pages from Facebook. It announced the new enhanced Company pages that would allow others to recommend their business. Recommending is very similar to the “Like” button on Facebook.
So will these new LinkedIn pages decide the battle? I have my doubts but LinkedIn is making a strong push. It recently announced that its Groups would now be public to non-members, which has been a criticism from professionals. Facebook pages have always been open and more accessible. Now LinkedIn is joining in on opening groups.
The battle between these two social networks has a lot to do with advertising dollars. As companies continue to increase their budgets for social media, they are also increasing their online advertising budgets. These two networks have good advertising models that are yielding promising results for users. It will be interesting to see if LinkedIn can compete with a giant and if Facebook can become more professional in the eyes of its users.
