Bluefire Blogs

Broncos Win Steelers! What an exciting game!!

Karen Thompson — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:58:57 +0000

Bronco fans in Denver are flying as high as their altitude of 5280 ft., after winning over the Steelers in O/T.

What an exciting game, even for fans like me that don’t watch a lot of sports.

Next week’s game against New England will also be another exciting games.

Go Broncos and Tebow!

Waiting Period after Foreclosure, Short Sale, or Bankruptcy

Karen Thompson — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 05:51:52 +0000

Many people may wish to purchase a new home, but feel they may not be eligible, because of a recent distressed sale of their home, through a short sale, foreclosure or bankruptcy. Although it is not possible to purchase another home immediately, it can happen after a certain time period has passed, which may be shorter than you think. That time period depends on the type of loan that is being used to purchase the new home and what type of distressed sale the home was sold through.

There are other factors that play a part in obtaining financing for the new home. For example, if the home was sold through a short sale and a conventional Fannie Mae loan is being sought, the Loan To Value ratio will come into play. This type of loan can be obtained after only 2 yrs. have gone by after the short sale, but only if the Loan To Value (LTV) does not exceed an 80% ratio. The amount of LTV will increase as the length of time increases since the short sale. This is only in the case of a short sale and in the case of a conventional Fannie Mae loan and will require a considerable amount of cash to be accessible to the buyer. Other types of sales and other types of loans all have different rules.

If you would like a complete chart describing in detail what the various rules are for the different types of distressed sales and loans, please contact me and I will be very happy to send you the entire chart via an email or you may wish to contact your trusted lender.

Economic Highlights

tiffanytaterealestate — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:32:48 +0000

Volume 15, Issue 32

For the week of August 15, 2011

What Will It Take?

Much is being said about the debt crisis as being the cause of most of the economic woes and that the counter-balance is to raise revenues be whatever means. On the other side of this argument is the view that spending is the big culprit and that position has considerable merit. You just can’t sustain spending more then you make for an extended time, at some point you will be declared insolvent, and we all have seen the consequences of this in history.
While there is truth in both views they do not identify the root to the financial crisis or the cure: Slow Economic Growth.
Fannie Mae’s Economic and Mortgage Market analysis for July describes Q2 data received so far as “discouraging,” and forecasts growth will likely end up at about the same anemic pace as in the Q1, an annualized rate of 1.9 percent. Others have lowered that estimate to just above 1.0%.
Many, including Fannie Mae have attributed the anemic economic growth to higher gasoline prices and the supply chain disruptions following the Japan earthquake and, of course a tepid housing recovery.
Truth is that the volatility in gasoline prices has been with us for decades, the Japan earthquake was an “act of god”. However, naming the slow recovery of housing is right on target. Not only did the housing market collapse contribute to the recession, it has also become a victim.
Here are some of the policies that contributed to the housing crisis: - Tweaking with underwriting standards including credit, income and income/debt ratios; - Inflated and wishful appraisal values; - Dishonest camouflaging of mortgage pool quality and rating on the secondary market; - Special programs sponsored by Fanny Mae & Freddie (blessed with government guarantees); - Low interest rates held down by the Fed; - An all-to-willing consumer eager to pull out all of the declared equity in their homes.;
Now, here we are after all the energy has been sucked out of housing to fuel an overheated economy. Fannie Mae acknowledged this in their report, “During the two years of the current economic expansion, residential investment has yet to make a contribution to economic growth, the Analysis states.”
A full economic recovery will necessarily include a concerted effort for private sector job creation, absorption of the “shadow inventory” left in the wake, and a resurgence of homeownership.
Government spending and taxing discipline alone will not cure the economy. A true recovery will take the resurgence of the American Spirit that originally made this country great.

What is a Long Tail URL?

admin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 02:33:04 +0000

Any discussion of Blogging and Blogsites tends, eventually, to get round to mentioning that a key benefit of a Blog is the SEO advantages of Long Tail URLs.

What is a URL?

Well, first of all lets remember that the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address / location of the web page expressed like this:

http://www.bluefireblogs.com/get-a-blog/

This is an “address” you can type directly into the “Address Bar” of the browser – and your browser will then open the page referenced.

What is a Long Tail?

The term “long tail” refers to a type of statistical distribution where the frequency of a result gets smaller and smaller until it gradually “tails off” to practically nothing.

In other words, in the context of considering traffic to a website, a few URLs are responsible for the vast amount of traffic to your site – whereas a much larger number of other URLs are responsible for a smaller and decreasing volume of traffic.

So when we refer to “Long Tail URLs”, what we are referring to is the collection of URLs that do not attract many visitors which are in the ‘long tail’ of the graph that plots volume of traffic (popularity) by URL.

So What?

Well, it turns out that many “long tail URLs” happen to be very specific webpages.
For example, consider a blog post which has a web address like this:

http://blog.singlepropertysites.com/2009/12/add-sponsors-and-banner-ads-with-campaigns/

This is a very specific URL. It appears ranked highly (#2) in Google for the search term “sponsors banner ads campaigns” (a long-tail keyword term).

Anyone searching for these search terms has a very specific need indeed!
But, they will certainly find this page. And this is where the payback is.

Since long-tail keywords are much more specific than the shorter-tail keywords, the long tail keywords give us a greater opportunity to present extremely relevant information to the consumer, to keep them on our website and hopefully start to engage with them.

The Bottom Line

Long tail URLs can perform significantly better in terms of relative conversions! You can read a report on this effect here.

This is the power of a Blog: The articles that you write will contain many permutations and combinations of keywords, which will create many pages that are Long Tail URLs.

The conclusion is that Long Tail URLs give you an opportunity to engage motivated consumers and ultimately see higher conversion rates.

Ideas for Blogging about Real Estate

admin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 23:49:20 +0000

Writers block is a terrible thing! I find that the best approach to writing to my Blog is to block out 15 minutes each day at the same time as I catch up on other news and read my email.

However, its sometimes useful to have a list of possible ideas to draw from.

There are many websites that provide huge lists of possible ideas, but I feel that as we are writing a Real Estate Blog, lets keep things focused. Also – always remember the golden rule which is that all your posts should be focused on a specific area of geography.

Neighborhood or Local Area news or story
Turn real estate oriented questions from your client’s emails into blog posts
Conversations with other Agents, Loan Officers and Title reps
Updates or articles on Mortgages, Loans and Financing issues of the day
Whats happening with the market – statistics and trends in the local area
Your analysis and commentary on real estate industry news
Comments on real estate topics: foreclosures, first time buyers, financing, second homes, rentals etc
Advice, Hints and Tips on moving, selling, buying, relocation
Comparisons of neighborhoods
Reviews of new construction and developments
Reviews of real estate resources and websites for consumers
“Ask the Expert” types of articles

Need more ideas? Search GOOGLE for real estate blogging ideas

Why Write a Real Estate Blog?

admin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:10:41 +0000

Writing Blog articles can take time and effort, so its definitely worthwhile being clear about why you want to write a blog!

Here are 5 good reasons for writing a Real Estate Blog:

Write Articles that People find via Google and other Search Engines

A good blog article needs to be focused on something very specific (and as a REALTOR® you should definitely be focusing on specific Geographies or Areas!) When a Blog article discusses a specific topic, then the keywords and title of the Blog post will naturally be focused too, (read about Long Tail URLs) and this is great news for getting your blog post indexed by Google. When consumers now start searching for help and ideas on the topics you write about, they will find your helpful articles.

Be Seen as An Expert

One of the ways to be seen as an expert is to offer expert advice and expert opinions! if you can position yourself as an expert in a geographic area or a specific market then others will link to you and this will not only draw traffic to your site, but will also help build you as a credible expert that others will want to do business with.

Market and Promote a Listing

Take your listings and turn them into Blog Posts – this is great way to get exposure for your listings and also to get great keywords into the Page Address URLs so that you can attract some niche traffic. If you use Listing Marketing solutions such as SinglePropertySites then you can take the web flyer HTML provided by them for your property, and simply insert it as the blog post!

Generate Traffic to your Site and Generate Leads

Focused Blog articles, as we have discussed, stand a great chance of getting indexed by Google and Others. Consumers are searching for all sorts of information as it relates to Real Estate – and if your Blog articles are helpful, knowledgeable and focused, then they get found by consumers and this brings traffic back into your website. Consumers that come to your website via your Blog articles will already have (hopefully) a positive opinion of your website service, and this means you stand a far greater chance too of getting these visitors to use other services in your site – and possibly sign up as leads.

Your Blog can help Generate Referrals

Credibility through expert articles will encourage others to link to you or to recommend your website and article to others. Your Blog can therefore be seen as a great way to generate referrals from others.

Summary

The above discussion should hopefully encourage you to think positively about the business opportunities afforded you by a Blog.

Don’t delay – get writing today!

For ideas on what to write about – see Blog Ideas!