First a quick overview from Wikipedia:
In accounting and finance, mark to market is the act of assigning a value to a position held in a financial instrument based on the current market price for the instrument or similar instruments. For example, the final value of a futures contract that expires in 9 months will not be known until it expires. If it is marked to market, for accounting purposes it is assigned the value that it would fetch in the open market currently.

Okay, so far so good, but what has this got to do with real estate? Everything! Real estate loans are sold and eventually bundled with other commercial paper or mortgaged backed guarantees. For the last 30 years, real estate has always gone up in value, so the current value (the mark to market) has always been lower than the real estate value that it is backed by. We think of this as “equity”.

WHY THE ROOF FELL IN
Then several years ago we allowed (even mandated) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make VERY loosy goosy loans to give everyone a chance to own a home. UGH. REALTORS made out great with this . . . for awhile. Then these “sub-prime” loans that didn’t even pay on the principal started rising with the market. Owners couldn’t pay, and started foreclosing. It’s been said that for each foreclosure, 7 home loans go at risk. The more foreclosures, the less stable the market got. The banks mortgage backed securities got to be worthless in that the note amount owed was less than what the property could be sold for.

NOW THE INTERESTING PART
Because of a ruling called “Mark to Market”, the bank must be held accountable THAT DAY for the value of those securities, and if those securities are worthless, they have to value them as such and show this in their portfolio as such. Part of the definition of a bank being insolvent is having a negative net worth. Thus this is when the mother ship (Government) or larger companies (Bank of America as an example) swoop in and purchase the company for 10 cents on the dollar. “There’s profit in them thar hills”.

WHAT IF “MARK TO MARKET” WAS SUSPENDED?
Will the real estate values NEVER raise again? Many wouldn’t bet against it. They would also argue that suspending or doing away with Mark to Market would allow the market to right itself and not be forced involintarily to be taken over by hostile competitors or by the Government. And by the way, when is the last time you can think of when the Government actually ran a company or institution well, or handled our money efficiently?

THE BOTTOM LINE
Keep Mark to Market and you’re going to have Government run these companies by bailing them out and them selling off the paper (the bad paper) when the economy improves. Suspend Mark to Market and you allow the banking institutions to decide themselves whether to hold the paper to maturity or to sell the paper themselves at a discount of their choosing.

It’s an interesting concept, but I’m not hearing alot of talk about it on Capitol Hill. Somehow it seems easier to just throw money at the problem and allow the Government to bailout (yes it IS a bailout) Wall Street and play investment banker with our money.

Sincerely,

Randy Eagar, CRS
www.Webstarget.com

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Before you say that all the good keyword phrase domain names are gone, you’ve obviously not included “stop words” such as “my”, “the”, “best”, “site”, etc. Of course you know that “BostonLuxuryHomes.com” is taken, but did you know that “TheBostonLuxuryHomes.com” is available for $9.99/yr. (yes, it really is available, as most locations like this are).  Also, “BostonLuxuryHomesSite.com” is also available for the same fee.

The magic of using these “stop words” are that the major search engines don’t index them, and so they are invisible to the search engines. Thus “TheBostonLuxuryHomes.com” has the same impact as “BostonLuxuryHomes.com”.

Want to test it? Just type this search into Google and take a look at the results line that shows how many competing websites there are. You’ll note that the word “the” is black and not underlined. Thus it is not a hyperlink. All the other words are.

So all we’ve learned so far is how to buy valuable domain names. Next we must understand why we would want to do this. The answer should be clear. How many times do you think that someone types into their search engine, your name? Not going to happen. Will a few type it in? Yes. And that brings me to my main point.

You can and should have your name as your domain name . . . but not for the search engines . . . for humans. We can remember easily spelled names as domain names. But how do we combine the use of our domain name that has our personal name (for the human element) with the “keyword rich” domain name (for the search engine element)? It’s just 3 steps.

1. Go to GoDaddy (or any other domain seller) and research and purchase a good “keyword rich” domain name. A “keyword rich” domain name has your location and services included.
2. Ask your Internet Service Provider (or the company that is hosting your website) to move it (not copy it) to the new “keyword rich” domain. They’ll know what to do.
3. This step is most important, and the ISP should know it. Tell them to put a “301 redirector” (a “301 redirector” is called a “permanent” redirector and is good for the search engines) on your old website, which will redirect them from your old domain with your name to your new domain location. To the viewer, they will know no difference. You will still have the same website and  it will happen so fast they will not know they are being redirected.

Now what do you have? You have your MarySmith.com domain on your business card for the human element, and yet you are using the better “keyword rich” domain name for the search engines to find you better. So you are using the best of both worlds.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When you buy this new “keyword rich” domain name, make sure you buy it for 10 years. Google gives you extra credit if they know you are not a spammer.

Also: If you already have a high Page Rank with Google, and your domain name is NOT “keyword rich” don’t do anything. The search engines already know you under your current name. Altering it could be bad.

BTW- For those SEO junkies out there, this bit of advice on the importance of domain names has been tossed about for awhile. I got the scoop from Yahoo and Google direct at a recent conference.

Sincerely,
Randy Eagar, CRS
www.Webstarget.com

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I just got back last week from a mind-blowing SEO Conference in San Jose, and what I learned you will want to know. There are 3 major things that I learned:

1. Our website was voted most “SEO Friendly” of the conference.
2. Content is still king and is playing even more of a role.
3. There are some new SEO methods that I learned that we’ll be giving you free!

As to our website, I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here as it is just a bunch of techno mumbo jumbo. But it sure makes me proud of my people here. If we can get to the top of our own collegues that know how to do this, we can easily do it for you.

HELP US HELP YOU

With regard to improving what we do for you, I’ve mentioned many times before that content is king. Now here is how you can help us help you. First of all, we are going to focus more on tying in more of your keyword phrases into your existing content. BEWARE: If you have standard boilerplate content that is not interesting to your prospects, it will also probably not be keyword friendly. In other words, if all your text is talking about you and how wonderful you are, there will be few phrases that your prospects will have typed in to find you. Instead, they will have typed in say “Phoenix luxury homes”. If you mention Phoenix luxury homes in your content (even duplicating and modifying the phrase such as “luxury homes in Phoenix”, “Phoenix homes and luxury living”, etc).

Let me say this a different way. If your content is all about you and how wonderful an agent you are, even if you get loads of traffic driven to your website, you will lose them because you are not giving them what THEY want.

Now here is the other way you can help yourself. When we do our research for our client’s best keyword phrases, we frequently find unique and optimal keyword phrases that would drive prospects to your website. Here’s an example. Let’s say that we find that we find that “Phoenix private schools” is an optimal keyword phrase. By definition, this means that there is high requests being made on the search engines for this phrase and not much competition for it in other agent websites.

Here is what you do. Create a separate web page that is all about Phoenix private schools and create a link to it from your Home page.

MORE CONTENT TIPS

When writing content for your website, whether for your Home page or other pages, be SPECIFIC! Specificity will demonstrate you as the expert in your field. This also means that your area of expertise should be specific as well. What are you really good at? Real estate sales? Not specific enough. Short sales, foreclosures, investments, rentals, new homebuyers, seniors, luxury living, waterfront, condos, suburban, urban, farms and ranches, lots, etc. etc. etc. You only want to specialize in one or two areas.

So what’s the point?

The major search engines are now looking more and more for the “theme” of your website and they are getting better and better at figuring out if you have a theme or if you are just fluff. Put more time and effort into your website from the buyer’s perspective and it will pay off in spades.

All My Best,

Randy Eagar
www.Webstarget.com

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What tools do I need to use RSS Feeds?

The “techy” answer to this is that to begin using RSS Feeds, you’ll need a special news reader or aggregator that displays RSS content feeds from Web sites you select. Simply said, there are many different news readers available, most of which are free of charge. Some are available as desktop software that you download and install on your computer. Web-based news readers are available, where you log into a website to view your subscriptions. Google has a  list of news readers for available RSS software and Web-based services.

But why worry about a “special news reader or aggregator that displays RSS content feeds” or where to get one, when there are many out there right now that are right under your nose. Do you use Google? It has it’s own. How about Yahoo? Yep, has it’s own too. Do you use Outlook? Many feed readers can be used as add-ins to Outlook so that you never have to leave your email program. Probably the easiest program to use however is the one that is already set up for you if you are using Internet Explorer. It can be found along side your “Favorites” link.

Once your news reader is set up, subscribe to the RSS content feeds you’re interested in by clicking on the content’s RSS link (usually marked with an orange “RSS” or “XML” button) to obtain the RSS URL, which you’ll see in the “Address” field of of your browser. Just copy this URL and follow the instructions for your particular news reader to subscribe.

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Why should I use an RSS Feed?

RSS is an easy way for you to be alerted when content that interests you appears on your favorite Web sites. Instead of visiting several websites to browse for new articles and features, RSS automatically tells you when something new is posted online. As opposed to email technology, RSS Feeds are defined as “pull” technology that you “pull” in when you like. Email is “push” technology where anyone can “push” their messages to you. RSS can save you time by showing you in one, single place all of the new information available on the websites you’re interested in following.

Finally, RSS Feeds are not counted as links, BUT as you get interesting information on these real estate RSS feeds, you can comment on your take of the post and LEAVE YOUR DOMAIN NAME address in the comment. This will then provide you with a powerful link to your website, especially if the blog site you are commenting from is a highly ranked blog site.

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Now I can make your click-throughs (those people that see your website and send you an email) jump at least 50% to 100%. By asking ten important questions and following some basic steps, you will experience a huge difference in your results. To read more, click here.

The Top Ten Questions
With Search Engine Optimization or Website Positioning, I work with both template and custom websites. Template websites are typically less expensive than custom websites. However it depends on what bundle of features you end up adding on.

While most template websites can be purchased for $500 to $800 or less, they have the drawback of sometimes looking “canned” with no individual personality. A custom website company will be able to give you much more personality and individuality, but it sometimes comes at a steep price. Whichever way you go, here are the ten questions I would ask the website company before signing or agreeing to anything:

1. If you build my website, who ultimately owns it? If you add content or pages, do you own that or do I?Template websites are typically owned by the website company. If you are working with a custom website builder, make sure the words “work for hire” are in your contract. If you decide to change website companies down the road, you will want to take all this hard work and time you’ve invested with you.

2. Do you have access to IDX, or the ability to add my MLS directly as a link to my website? If so, is this an extra cost and how much?Many website developers have already built this cost into their pricing.

3. Can I access my listings myself and make changes to pricing, solds, new listings or delete them myself?This is huge. If you are not able to do this easily yourself, your webmaster may hold you hostage.

4. What “dynamic page” features do you offer? (i.e. calculator page, mortgage finder page, relocation package, free reports, contact page, etc.)
   
5. What marketing features do you offer? (i.e. auto-response forms, free newsletters and/or drip marketing campaigns.)
   
6. Can you put “video tours” of my listings and/or communities on my website?This also works very well for open houses.

7. Will my website include the new Web 2.0 concepts of blogs, podcasting, videocasts, “live chat” and other social networking?
   
8. What kind of content material assistance is there and/or how much does it cost?
   
9. What kind of technical support is there and what are the hours?
   
10. Do you provide web applications that combine data and/or functionality from more than one source? (e.g “mash-ups”.)This might be as simple as placing an MSN or Google Mapping system on your website. Or as complex as combining Google Maps and Analytics with Trulia and Zillow integrated application programming interfaces (APIs).

Your website can be your best revenue source or it can be your boat anchor. The difference is sometimes so subtle. Only you can make the changes by asking the previous questions.

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How did this all happen so quickly? It is all due to Webstarget’s new Gold Masters SEO Plan that utilizes the new Web 2.0 social networking features. At the root of this phenominal ranking (and many other keyword phrases hit #1 as well) is the efficient use of the blog site that Webstarget builds for its clients as well as personalized content. How the blog site ties into the client website is the reason for such fast and skyrocketing rankings . . . and for highly competitive keyword phrases. Below is a list of the Gold Masters SEO Plan features that drive your website to the top of the search engines.

The Gold Masters SEO Plan includes:

• Blog Site Creation & Optimization
• Provided Articles & Promotions
• Online Press Release Promotions
• Social Bookmarking Site Submission
• Personalized Site Mapping
• Competitor Research Analysis
• Link Building
• and much more!

With Us It’s Personal
Only Webstarget.com has the tools to get real estate agents to the top of the major search engines. While there are many other “competitors” out there, only Webstarget handles each client personally, researching their keyword phrases for maximum effect. There is no “template” involved. We say “with us it’s personal” because for 7 years now we have been doing only SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or Website Positioning and not designing websites. Having your website designer also do your SEO is like asking your General Practitioner doctor to do your brain surgery or knee replacement. It deserves a specialist. But the biggest reason why so many major players in the industry are choosing Webstarget is quite simple: It Makes Them MONEY!

 But don’t take our word for it. See our new website at Webstarget.com at look at our testimonials, podcasts and video blogs. Think about it. If we can beat out 29 MILLION of the most influential and knowledgeable specialists in the country who know how to do what we do, don’t you think we can place you where you need to be?

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     The average sale price for an existing home in Oklahoma rose by 4.24 percent last year, from $143,669 in 2006 to $149,758 in 2007.

     In 2007, there were 52,170 sales of existing homes in Oklahoma. While that figure represents a decrease of 3.16 percent from the state’s record home sales figure in 2006, the 2007 sales number reflects the third highest year on record for home sales in Oklahoma.

     “While the housing industry in some parts of the country is facing some serious challenges, today’s report underscores the fact that home ownership in Oklahoma continues to be an affordable, stable and secure investment,” said Tammy McCullar, OAR president. “Homeowners across the state should be confident about the value of their homes, given that 2007 marked the seventh year in a row in which home values in Oklahoma appreciated.”

     Since 2000, the average sale price of an existing home in Oklahoma has risen by an average of 4.88 percent per year. The median price for an existing home in Oklahoma in 2007 reflects almost a 40 percent increase from the 2000 median price for an existing home of $107,303.

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Yet NAR statistics tell us that fully 80% of all agent websites are lacking in professionalism, marketing and/or substance in general. What most agents don’t understand is that we have shifted from a website passive atmosphere to a website active atmosphere. The difference is with the Web 1.0 vs. the Web 2.0.

With Web 2.0, we usher in the beginnings of instant feedback, collaborative relationships and websites that are the backbone of the marketing efforts rather than the entire marketing effort. I’d like to give you what I have learned over the last 18 years of working with agent websites. Over the last 6 years specifically, I have worked with some of the most productive agents in the country and have worked on websites that are generating over $100,000 just from the website. And that was just from the old Web 1.0. Now with the new tools of Web 2.0, that investment return is soaring even higher.Here is the bottom line. You need to get out of the way of your ego and allow those who do this professionally show you what will make you money and what won’t. So I have decided to attack this piece from the viewpoint of what I would tell an agent who was just now building a new website (or upgrading an existing one) what to do. What follows are the secrets to building successful websites that will generate income.I decided early on that I didn’t want to compete against the website designers that had built my clients websites. This gave me the edge to look into the inner workings of both successful as well as deplorable websites. I found that there was a definite common thread that successful websites had. There were sites that generated $100,000 in revenues or more. And keep in mind that this is passive income. The website is doing all the work.Okay, so here are the 10 website construction steps that communicate your professional posture:

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Template Websites
Template websites are typically less expensive (but not necessarily) than custom websites. It depends on what bundle of features you end up adding on. While most template websites are less expensive (some as little as $200 up front) they can look like a “canned” website with no individual personality. If you are contemplating a template website company there are some questions you need to ask before you plunk down your money:

1. If they build your website, who ultimately owns it? (They do of course) But your question must go deeper. What about the content that you add, or the pages that you add? Do you own those? (If you decide to change website companies down the road can you take all this hard work that you’ve done)
2. Do you have access to IDX, or the ability to add my MLS directly as a link to my website?
3. Can I access my listings myself and make changes to pricing, solds, new listings or delete them myself?
4. What “dynamic page” features do they offer such as calculator page, mortgage finder page, relocation package, free reports, contact page, etc.
5. What marketing features do they offer such as auto-response forms, free newsletters and/or drip marketing campaigns?
6. What kind of content material assistance is there and/or how much does it cost?
7. What kind of technical support is there and what are the hours.

Real Estate SEO Questions
After deciding on who can design your website, let’s go back to them and ask the most important questions. Those that will either get you found by the search engines or will block you:

1. Has your company ever been or is it now blacklisted by Google or any of the major search engines?
2. Can I modify or can I have a 3^rd party modify my source code for real estate SEO purposes?
3. Can my Title Code be modified for my home page and each of my “static” pages?
4. Do you offer a Traffic Analyzer tool such as Google Analytics?
5. Do you personalize my keyword phrases to me and my specialties?
6. What Web 2.0 features do you offer (blogs, podcasts, etc.)
7. Do you provide articles and press release promotions?
8. Does the website have a “static” or a “clean” IP address?
9. Do you provide social bookmarking
10. Will your website have personalized site mapping?

What Good Is Your Website if It Can’t Be Found?
Answer these questions before you get started with your website and you can’t go wrong. Or if you already have a website it is better to fix it while you can than wait until later.

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