• It looks like pending foreclosures from adjustable rate mortgages are affecting lower income people more then the rich, explains Al Tompkins at Poynter Online. Tompkins looks at recent stories in the St. Petersburg Times (Florida) and Winston-Salem Journal (N.C.) which illustrate this quite clearly.
• Black homeownership is falling in Louisville, Kentucky according the the US Census Bureau, reports the Courier-Journal.
  
  Here are some stats about the Louisville metro market that will blow your mind:

  39 percent of Black households owned their homes last year
  75 percent of White households owned their homes last year
  38 percent of Hispanic households owned their homes last year

  The interesting fact is that five years ago, black ownership was at 40 percent and hispanic ownership was at a low 26 percent. The big question is - Why are these two groups moving in different directions?

• In another report about the recent census, USA Today discusses how the cost to be in a home rose since last census in 2000, while incomes fell, making it much moore difficult to afford to rent or buy a home. “From 2000 to 2005, median home values surged 32%, fueling a consumer boom as homeowners tapped into this wealth. But the sharp rise in home values also boosted the monthly cost to own a home 5%, and to rent one 6.7% . . . The national median income adjusted for inflation was $47,599 in 2000. It dipped to $46,326 in 2005, according to the data.”
• Between 2002 and 2004, the number of Realtors climbed 26%, and today there are over 1.2 million. CNNMoney today covered how it is becoming increasingly difficult for many people to make a living working full time as a real estate agent.

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Tags: agent, ARM, census, estate, Foreclosures, home, homeowners, Mortgages, ownership, poor, real, realestate, Realtors

Blogs can be very effective communication tools for people in all areas of real estate. Real Estate Agents, Lenders, Investors and other professionals in this field can all benefit from blogging. Here’s a few ways to add to your success by blogging.

First, I wanted to mention a few important keys:
- Focus on Your Niche and Your Area
- Be consistent
- Use your expertise to attract locals
- Keep your readers interested

I realize that much of this is obvious, but all 4 points are very important if your real estate blog is to lead you to success.

Real Estate Agents / Realtor Blogging

Why would someone want to read the blog of a real estate agent? Successful agents draw a good chunk of their business from referrals. These agents are out and about in the community, and are seen as experts in the community.

If agents can convey news, trends, demographics to their community or those interested in that community, they will enhance their presence. Their blog becomes a key information source which will become valuable — as a result, this agent will be seen as an expert in the community, whether or not they are the “Top Agent” for the area. One of the best blogs around that that can be emulated is Curbed. This site highlights New York City real estate, trends, news, etc. If there is a building for sale, Curbed will write about it. The site generates interest because it has become the pulse of New York City real estate. Do that in your town/city, and you’re sure to drive business to record levels.

Lender Blogging

Lenders can benefit for the same reasons as real estate agents. The key to blogging as a lender is not boring your audience. There is only so much financial information people can process. If you can filter the information and put it in easy to understand terms, you will benefit your market. Instead of only providing mortgage info, why not go the same route as the real estate agent — give the community focused news about the housing market in their community. You can also provide them with articles that will help them understand how mortgages work, what loans would be best for them, and so on.

Other Real Estate Professionals

What about the local interior designer or contractor? Do you think a blog would work for these guys? YES! These professionals can highlight recent work and projects they’ve worked on. People love to see before and after photos. Share with your market the great work you’ve done and continue to do, and they will call you. Would you rather work with a landscaper who’se work you can see online, and proves his expertise, or the guy in the local phonebook?

Real Estate Investor Blogging

From a business standpoint, I’m not sure how blogging would benefit the average real estate investor. By sharing your exploits, hardships, and successes with a blog, you will benefit other investors. You will give them access to invaluable information which will hopefully help them to avoid problems themselves, and to be more successful. However, how will it help you to find more deals? I think the answer to that is, by sharing your success with others, you draw their confidence. If people see that you do good work and make money, they will be more inclined to work with you.

As you can see, blogging can be beneficial to people in many areas of real estate. Share with us how your blog has helped your business.

Tags: blog, blogging, contractor, curbed, estate, lender, real, realestate, realestateblog, realtor, weblog

I’m not sure how I originally heard about the Realivent site, but there was something tempting about a site that “is looking for beta testers.” A few weeks ago I filled out their tester sign-up form, and on Saturday, was admitted into their Beta program. After filling out a simple registration form, I was able to access the various functions of this site, which looks like a consolidator of real estate blogs, news, and property listings.

Here are the site’s real estate tools:

Property Listings:

It seems like the site is just scraping Craigslist’s listings and integrating the location into Google maps like many of the other real estate mashup web 2.0 sites. In addition to showing the basic property info (asking price, beds, baths) and a photo, it appears as though Realivent will eventually have comparable data, school and neighborhood information. Click on a property listing, and you’re taken right back to Craigslist. In its current state, the site only shows a handful of San Francisco listings, and has basic search functionality; this section looks nice, but is not currently functional. I’m not sure if they are going to just crape listings from other sites, or if they will have their own listings — we’ll see.

Real Estate News:

The real estate news section of Realivent appears to function like sites such as Netscape, Shoutwire, and the original news rating site, Digg. Users can post links to real estate news with a brief summary, and others can rate that story. Unlike the aforementioned sites, the articles with higher ratings and greater interest do not move to the top of the page; they are simply given a one through five star ranking to determine popularity. In addition to rating articles, the site lets you post a comment about the article, email it to a friend, and lastly, report the story (if SPAM, I’m guessing).

Real Estate Blogs:

Realivent lets users add blogs to the site. This section functions in the same way as the real estate news section, except that once added, articles posted on the blogs will appear on the site. You can rate, comment, email and report any of the stories.

The last thing I noticed about the site is that there is a search bar that includes videos. I’m not sure what kind of videos they intent to have on the site, but it seems like a strange fit with a real estate site.

Overall, the site appears to be an aggregator of various real estate information. It looks nice, but doesn’t bring anything technologically new to the online real estate world or the web in general. We’ll wait and see what else they bring to the picture once the site is fully functional, and will reserve judgement until then.

The site does not list a date of public release.

Tags: beta, blog, craigslist, digg, estate, listings, mashup, property, real, realestate, realivent, web20

Hey everyone! We’d like to thank Adam Samuel for hosting this week’s Real Estate Carnival at his blog, Nubricks.com. Our post, How to Find Foreclosure & Pre-Foreclosure Properties was recognized in the latest edition of the carnival.

Tags: carnival, estate, nubricks, real, realestate

• In Houston, Texas the Harris County Housing Authority has teamed up with private development companies to build 5 senior-living complexes, reports the Houston Business Journal. “‘The real story here is that the public/private model works — helping the community balance the need for both market-rate housing and affordable housing,’ says Guy Rankin, CEO and executive director of the Harris County Housing Authority.”
• Andy Beal at WebProNews talks about how real estate agents are shifting their marketing efforts towards blogging; print newspaper ad spending has declined accordingly.
• RealBlogging goes over the Top 10 Most Expensive States for Closing Costs as issued by BankRate.com. New York topped the list with costs of $3,887.
• Calgary, Alberta, Canada is in the midst of a explosive housing growth due to its own oil boom. I’ve been hearing about the market in Calgary for months now, but this RealEstateJournal article captures the picture as well as I’ve seen it described before.

Tags: alberta, bankrate, calgary, Canada, county, harris, housing, realestate, realestatejournal, webpronews

The good people at Gallup have posted the results of their UBS/Gallup Index of Investor Optimism poll, which shows that “investors are worried that the real estate markets are continuing to deteriorate. The new poll also shows that investor optimism continued its steady seven month decline, reaching a new low point for the year in August.”

As you can see from the following charts:

Only 41% of investors rate the market as good or excellent currently, compared to 52% in July. “Even more importantly, 7 in 10 investors believe conditions in the residential real estate market nationwide are getting worse, not better — up from 63% in June.”

Tags: bubble, gallup, galluppoll, investor, market, optimism, poll, realestate, realestateinvestor

Once again, the Carnival of Real Estate is here. Our Top 35 Real Estate Blogs post made it into this week’s edition.

Check it out at TheLandlordBlog.com

Tags: Blogs, carnival, estate, real, real estate, realestate