We just launched the All New BiggerPockets Dashboard!

BiggerPockets members now have an easier way to navigate our real estate social network!

In an effort to improve the user experience and navigation of BiggerPockets, we’ve completely revamped the DASHBOARD.

Some of the most important improvements of the BiggerPockets Dashboard include:

• Activity Logging: Members can now track the activity of their colleagues on the site. See what your colleagues are commenting on, posting to the site, etc! You can track new activity and be the first to know about new properties, articles, and other stuff from your colleagues.
• Easier to Use Functionality: The most used functions on the site are now found on the left of the Dashboard in an easy to use toolbar.
• Site News & Announcements: Important website news and updates are all easily visible below the important functions
• Latest Forum Posts: Members can see the most recent forum activity directly from the DASHBOARD to help you find interesting topics more easily.
• A New Function Bar: The gray drop down function bar at the top of the DASHBOARD makes finding what you want on BiggerPockets easier then ever!
• Notifications Box: At the top right of the DASHBOARD will appear all NOTIFICATIONS that require your attention, including Reference Requests, Colleague Requests and Private Messages.

These are just some of the many improvements we’ve made to the dashboard. We’ve got some great additions that we’ll be adding to the dashboard in the next few days, and as we continue to grow, look forward to some really special stuff to come!

Sign into BiggerPockets.com Today and See How We’re Continuing to Revolutionize Real Estate Social Networking!

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or sign up for our real estate social network. Thanks for visiting!

Tags: biggerpockets, biggerpockets.com, real estate 2.0, real estate social network, real estate social networking

They’re Here! We’ve Launched BiggerPockets Blogs!

In last week’s newsletter, we told you some of the reasons to blog. Now that we’ve officially launched BiggerPockets Blogs, I’d like to share some of the great features of our blogging system, along with some great reasons to get blogging on BiggerPockets.

Some Reasons to Set Up a Blog with BiggerPockets Blogs Include:

1. It’s EASY - Setting up a blog takes less than a minute, and you never need to know any HTML or other code to use the blog. Easily upload images or YouTube videos, alter your fonts and post layouts, and more using our WYSIWYG (Whay You See is What You Get) blog creator!
2. Customizable Layouts - We’ve made customizing the layout of your blog, quick and easy. Choose your own colors, layout design (more layouts coming soon), sidebar additions and create a blog that fits your personality.
3. Widget Ready - Got a widget that you must have on your blog? Members can simply paste the widget code into our Blog customizer and viola!
4. SEO Ready - Our blogs are search engine optimized so inclusion in Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN, etc should be fast and effortless.
5. Instant Publicity - All Bloggers with a BiggerPockets Blog will have the opportunity to have their blog and profile promoted across our site. Those bloggers who are more active in their posts and comments will be promoted on our stats page and elsewhere. Additionally, members profiles are promoted to the search engines (unless you request profile privacy), and just having an account on our site allows you to be found by millions of people in the real estate world!
6. Communicate with other Bloggers with Trackbacks - With our trackback system, by simply linking to posts of other bloggers in your articles, both on BiggerPockets and off, our system will notify them, and you’ll instantly let them know that you find their article relevant. Its a great way to stay in touch with other bloggers and let them know that their content is important to you.
7. Build an Audience with Blog and Comment Subscriptions - both BiggerPockets members and visitors can subscribe to your blog or individual articles, either through RSS feeds or email subscriptions. Your audience can easily be automatically notified whenever you post new content, or whenever someone adds to a conversation in the comments of your blog.
8. Save Your Favorite Posts Across BiggerPockets Blogs - We’ve established a system for members to be able to save any post on the site that interests them. Once saved, you can easily find your favorite saved blog posts in your dashboard.
   Promote yourself, your real estate ideologies and thoughts
9. Ping the World - Automatically ping the world upon publication of a new post. Pinging notifies blog search engines and directories that you’ve got a new post, and helps them keep the most up to date records of your content.
10. Make Money - We saved the best for last! BiggerPockets members have the opportunity to make money with their blogs by adding advertising. BiggerPockets does not show any ads on member’s blogs. Instead, we’ve created specific ad slots where you can add advertisements from Google AdSense, Yahoo, MSN, or ANY OTHER AD NETWORK. Just set up an account, find the right ad size to match the specified slot, and paste the code your network provides you. All that’s left is to provide great content so your visitors keep coming back, and you’ll be on your way to make some real cash! (Launching this week!)

What Are You Waiting For?

NOTE: I’m going to be maintaining a blog to help our members use our Blogs and other site functions. Swing by and check out the BiggerPockets Founder’s Blog

Tags: bigger pockets, biggerpockets, biggerpockets blogs, blog, blogger, blogging, marketing, publicity

It has been a long time coming . . .

BiggerPockets Members can now show off your BiggerPockets Real Estate Profile by adding our badges to your website, blog, or profile on other social sites! All badges will link directly to your profile, so add them today and promote yourself socially!

To get your badges, just go to your Dashboard, open the Profile section, and click on the Profile Badges link, OR go directly to http://www.biggerpockets.com/badges.

Here are just a few samples:

We’ve also got property badges, where you can promote your listings on BiggerPockets, and we’ll be launching more designs in the next weeks!

So . . .get out there and let people know that you’re a proud member of BiggerPockets!

Tags: bigger pockets, biggerpockets, biggerpockets.com, real estate badge, real estate profile, real estate social, real estate social network

Just Launched: BiggerPockets Bulletin!

Yesterday afternoon we launched BiggerPockets Bulletin!

Members can use this social bookmarking application to share their favorite real estate related stuff with their friends, colleagues, and the world.

Features include:

• Post real estate related links, photos, movies, articles, blog posts.
• Vote on your favorite Bulletins and help make it popular.
• Share your thoughts on different Bulletins by leaving comments.
• Save your favorite Bulletins in your Dashboard.
• Email cool Bulletins to your friends and colleagues.

Some benefits of sharing your content include:

• Exposure from a vast audience of people in the real estate world
• Increased traffic to your website and posts
• The opportunity to get new feedback from our users
• A new way for people to share your work with others

We’ve heard some skepticism about the idea because other sites have been built with the same goal, but these have all been overrun with SPAM and nonsense. Between our filters and moderators, we will be working to ensure that BiggerPockets Bulletin does not fall victim to the same problems as these other sites. Additionally, we’ve already got a built-in audience of well over 100,000 monthly unique visitors to keep the traffic flowing.

Jump on BiggerPockets Bulletin Today and start sharing!

Tags: bigger pockets, biggerpockets, real estate links, real estate news, real estate social network, social real estate news

What can I say but thank you!

What started less than 4 years ago as a personal website about real estate investing, is now fast becoming a nationally recognized internet brand.

A few minutes ago, BiggerPockets.com registered its 20,000th Member

I couldn’t have imagined when I was just starting this website that we’d come so far. It has been a great ride, and I derive so much pleasure knowing that we’ve helped so many of our MILLIONS of visitors over the years!

We’re Just Getting Started!

While 20,000 members and well over 100,000 monthly visitors may sound great, we’re just getting started! BiggerPockets has quite a few tricks still hidden under its sleeves, and with every new release, we only hope to help serve our members further.

In the next week we’re planning on releasing a few great new features to help our goal of improving real estate networking, education, and dealmaking for our members, and we’ve got even more cool updates coming shortly thereafter!

Our long-term plans (I could tell you about them, but I’d have to . . . . well, you know) include some very exciting updates over the next several months and years, and hopefully will continue to generate enthusiasm and interest from folks from every corner of the real estate world.

Thank You

To everyone who has supported me and BiggerPockets, I thank you. The site couldn’t be where it is today without your help, and I am so appreciative for your time and energy. Specifically, there are a few key people who I wanted to thank here: Julie, Charles, James, Jon, Rob, Edd, Steve, all of our moderators, blog contributors, advertisers, joint venture partners, members, and of course, our visitors - Thank You!

Well . . . enough for now. I’ve got to get back to work! There’s No Time to Think if we’re going to get to 50,000, 100,000, 1,000,000 members soon . . .

Tags: biggerpockets, biggerpockets.com, joshua-dorkin, real estate, real estate 2.0, real estate investing bigger pockets, real estate social network

With the new housing bill that just passed on Wednesday and goes in to effect on October 1, how are home buyers with out a down payment going to find financing to purchase your investment?  

The new bill eliminates seller-funded down payment assistant programs for FHA loans. Many investors and sellers are now faced with finding new creative ways to selling their properties.  Investors need to quickly go on the offensive to find borrower that have a down payment.   Finding these individuals is easier than you think.   For the last three and half years first time home buyers have paused on their home buying because housing was unaffordable and then the market began to free fall. As we near the bottom these buyers are starting to consider buying again.  Since 2003 housing prices soared across the nation and these buyers not only can afford a home, but they have been saving money for 3.5 years.  This could be just enough to put 3% to 5%  down on your investment property that you are selling. 

 Where do we find these individuals?  This is the million dollar question.   We can first start with the internet.  Websites like www.biggerpockets.com have hundreds of potential buyers that come to them seeking information on the home buying process as well as looking for a great deal.   But really the only way to selling any thing to them is to become involved with the sites, create a profile, share your expertise, and then give these customers an opportunity to buy your home(s).   Does this sound like a work?  It is, but this is the new real estate age, nothing comes for free and one must work smarter not harder.  Use the web to benefit you, even beginner investors can create a niche in their community by being online.  Trust me the next generation of home buyers are coming of age and they now have their computers in their front pocket, its called a PDA.

Next week we will talk about the loans that will replace FHA loans now that the down payment cant not be seller funded.

Tags: biggerpockets, investors, real estate networks, real estate social network, sellers, social networks

It has been a long time coming . . .

We just launched a MAJOR FACELIFT to BiggerPockets!

For years, people have been using our site to do everything from finding tools and resources, to discussing real estate, to making deals, to selling property, etc. We’ve just made it easier to do several of these things.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• Created a New BiggerPockets Front Page — some of the great things you’ll find on the new front page of BiggerPockets.com include highlighted property listings, random member profiles, assorted public gallery photos, tags from our property listings, the latest forum and blog posts, and more!
  

• Re-launched our Property Directory to make it “2.0″ — it is now fully integrated into the social profiles of our members, and is easy to use and interactive! Members can save a property as a favorite, email it to their colleagues, subscribe to our main listing RSS feed, or customize their own feeds for individual State or even more specific listings, and much more!
  

  Of course, adding a listing is free and easy. Members (agents, investors, FSBOs, etc) can add investment properties, land, a primary residence, commercial properties, or even make a deal post on the property directory by going to the property section of their Dashboard or adding directly through the Property Directory page. Of course the listings are integrated with mapping, and are connected directly to the listing poster’s profile.

• Established a Property Notification “Matching” System — members can select criteria that interests them, and once a listing is added to the site that matches that set of criteria, the user will be notified in their Dashboard — if they elect to do so, they will also be sent an email letting them know that a match to their requirements has been made. The user can then remove individual notifications if they are no longer interested in seeing them, and disable or deactivate all notifications.
  

• Built a Community Gallery Page – members who elect to share photos by creating a public gallery will see their property photos in our gallery page.
  

• Cleaned up several areas of the site, and made many other changes to improve the user experience.

Stop by and see how BiggerPockets has stepped up the game!

Next up . . . . stay tuned! (did you really think we’d share all of our secrets?)

Tags: 2.0 propertiy, bigger pockets, biggerpockets, biggerpockets.com, find real estate, Google maps, investment property, maps, property directory, real estate, real estate social network, social network, web 2.0