The Last Lecture - Dr. Randy Pausch Dies at Age 47

July 25, 2008 – 4:24 pm
A remarkable man and a true inspiration to all of us died today after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. You may have seen or heard about Dr. Randy Pausch on 60 minutes and other sources. He recently wrote a book called The Last Lecture. He offers some important advice: Be good at something, it maks you valuable Work hard Brick walls let us show our dedication Get a feedback loop and listen to it Don't complain: work harder Focus on others, not yourself Apologize when you screw up You can't get there alone Show gratitude Be prepared: "luck" is where preparation meets opportunity Find the best in everybody [youtube]ji5_MqicxSo[/youtube]

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Trump VS Rosie Real Estate Video Game

July 25, 2008 – 10:51 am
For those of you who are concerned about the fight that has been going on between Rosie and Donald Trump, you can now take sides in this interactive video game. Waste endless hours of your life. Go ahead, you know you want to....

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A Sure Way to Kill Creativity

July 24, 2008 – 6:44 pm
[youtube]kU9YeOQm3Y0[/youtube]

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Mortgage Crisis - Higher Risk - Higher Rates - Broken Model?

July 22, 2008 – 6:21 pm

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Virgin Home Loan Financing - Be the Bank

July 22, 2008 – 5:32 pm
The Virgin Group, a conglomerate of separately owned companies that use the Virgin brand, is getting into the Peer 2 Peer lending market. They recently released a loan program that can help your loved one buy a  home. Nothing like the awkward silence at Dinner. "Um, Jimmy, you are 6 months late on your mortgage, when do you think you can get that to us?"

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10 Ways You Play Golf Can Kill or Improve your Business

July 19, 2008 – 12:55 pm
I believe strongly in how we approach sports, especially golf, and the way we play it can help grow successful businesses or kill them. Tim Moynihan and I recently got back from 36 holes of golf in Rhode Island and then in Denver and it sparked a conversation on how we and others play golf, is also how we and others live our life and run our businesses. Over the years I have seen hundreds of ways people present themselves on the golf course as well as off the golf course. I wanted to write down the 10 ways I see how people play golf and use these techniques in growing a successful business. Note: In no way am I saying that you have to be good in golf to be in good in business. I know many people who hate and suck at golf but they have the most successful businesses ...

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Zilok - Rent Anything Online

July 16, 2008 – 5:10 pm
Zilok is a company that offers a marketplace for renters to find and rent anything online.  They entered into the US in 2007 and US traffic seems to be growing nicely. You can rent anything from a scruffy basketball to a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. More on Zilok below: [youtube]aLko8E-PEzs[/youtube]

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Summize Acquired by Twitter for $15 million in Cash and Stock

July 15, 2008 – 4:51 pm
Summize, the twitter search engine we recently wrote about was acquired by Twitter for $15 million in cash and stock. Summize raised $750,000 in June 07 and has been on a rocket ship trajectory ever since. It is rumored that summize was trying to outsource their twitter search to a large internet company. Google?  Twitter decided to acquire and get to market faster. A great move as I think this search functionality will allow them to monetize at higher RPMs (Revenue Per Thousand Page Views).

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RentPredict.com - Rental Credit History to Screen out DeadBeats

July 15, 2008 – 3:10 pm
One of the worst things for a real estate investor is getting a deadbeat tenant who doesn't pay their bills. There also tends to be a positive correlation between deadbeats and distruction of property. I wish I heard of this tool prior to my last tenant I had to evict. RentBureau has a credit history product called RentPredict. RentPredict takes available rental data and predicts the likelihood of a potential resident paying rent and fulfilling his or her lease obligations. Similar to a FICO credit score, RentPredict offers scores for each applicant. RentPredict.com Report score above 965 = Best RentPredict.com Report score 941-965 = Quality RentPredict.com Report score 906-940 = Good RentPredict.com Report score 851-905 = Fair RentPredict.com Report score below 850 = Risky For $9.95 you can run a search to find the potential residents previous leases and identify whether or not they are in collections. This is a great tool for investors who want to ...

Posted in Rental Market, Rental Tips | 2 Comments »

1 Million More Rental Homes on the Market

July 14, 2008 – 5:17 pm
Goldman Sachs’ U.S. Economic Research Group recently released data that says over the past 2 years there have been over 1 million for sale units that have been converted into rentals. This is one of the reasons why we are not seeing rent inflation because although demand is increasing for rentals, we are also seeing a large increase in supply.

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GlassDoor.com Breaks Through the Glass Roof

July 11, 2008 – 12:36 pm
A couple of months ago we wrote about a new start-up in stealth mode called GlassDoor. We originally thought this site was going to be something related to real estate because of the name and the fact that Rich Barton, the CEO of Zillow was on the board. We were very wrong in our assumptions. Glassdoor.com is a career and workplace community where anyone can find and anonymously share real-time reviews, ratings and salary details about specific jobs for specific employers — all for free. They have been around for a month and according to compete.com already have over 270,000 unique visitors per month. This site and product is destined to succeed and I wouldn't be surprised if it gets picked up by a large Job search site or search engine within the next year or 2.

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What the F@#$ is Social Media

July 11, 2008 – 11:11 am
| View | Upload your own

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Trulia Raises $15 million in Additional Funding

July 11, 2008 – 8:43 am
Inman wrote today that Trulia.com, the vertical search engine for real estate listings raised another $15 million in funding.  Total raised capital so far totals $33 million. Some think Trulia is currently valued at $100 - $150 million. "The housing slump has permanently altered how people search for real estate and their thirst for information," said Pete Flint, co-founder and CEO of Trulia. "This additional capital will help us take advantage of this opportunity and continue our accelerated growth. …"

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Landmark Communications to Sell Weather Channel to NBC

July 6, 2008 – 3:09 pm
In January we wrote that Landmark Communications was looking to sell their assets. Landmark owns The Weather Channel and runs Dominion Enterprises which owns sites like ForRent.com, Homes.com, CorporateHousing.com and many other sites. Landmark announced on Sunday that they will sell The Weather Channel Cos. to a consortium of NBC Universal and two private equity firms for an undisclosed amount. The Weather Channel Cos. is expected to do $550 Million in revenues this year. About 1/3rd of that is coming from WeatherChannel.com. It is said that NBC and its partners, Bain Capital and The Blackstone Group, offered about $3.5 billion. The weather channel Cos. accounted for about one-quarter of Landmark's 2007 Revenues. If Landmark sells their remaining assets including Dominion Enterprises this year, it should yield another $10 - $14 Billion.

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10 Commandments of Fake Steve Jobs

July 3, 2008 – 7:10 pm
We have written how the iPhone and mobile applications will change the way we find and search for real estate. We wanted to show how Steve Job is able to develop such great products. Below are the 10 commandments from the fake Steve Jobs. This is  hilarious: 10 Commandments of Fake Steve Jobs: 1. Never let people know where they stand. Keep them guessing. Keep them afraid. Otherwise they get complacent. Creativity springs from fear. Think of a painter… he’s going to starve to death if he doesn’t get his work done … Same goes for the people at Apple and Pixar. They come in every day knowing it could be their last … they work like hell; trust me. 2. You don’t have to hire the best people. You can hire anyone as long as you scare the shit out of them … Look at the crappy cars that get made in ...

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Twitter me This, Twitter me That

July 3, 2008 – 10:49 am
If you think Twitter, (the communication platform for nerds), is simply a place to write about "what you are doing right now", you are missing the proverbial boat. NikNik of MyTechOpinion, wrote 22 reasons to use Twitter for business and Pleasure: FOR BUSINESS Gain exposure for my blogs… and gain potential readers Build my network with transparency and trust Market my work, products, services, etc. Answer questions/ ask questions Learn new things from other industry professionals Share tech tips & resources (baby blog post) & teach stuff Meet and talk with others (some business/some pleasure) Conference connecter (stay connected, share info, get social) Seek out industry colleagues for assistance w/ special projects Safety- Tweet unfamiliar meeting locations & while traveling Better understand social media FOR (MY) PLEASURE See a new side of your friends View/Share fitness tips and favorite motivational songs View/Share fun pictures (of self and others, or random stuff) View/Share fun links (great sites and other fun blogs) View/Share local news and events Exchange great recipes Tweet the wacky: ...

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Vote Dan Daugherty for President

July 1, 2008 – 8:03 pm

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Ben Bernanke Loves Real Estate 2.0

June 30, 2008 – 12:58 pm
We wanted to have a little fun with Ben Bernanke and release a collage of Ben Bernanke himself. We have matched together over 130 logos from Must Know Real Estate Sites and made an image of Ben Bernanke. You can view the entire Bernanke collage here. If you see your logo as part of Ben Nernankes face, let us know and we will add you to the "Must Know Real Estate Sites" list.

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Iggys House Down for the Count

June 28, 2008 – 1:52 pm
It appears Iggys House is no longer online. The site has been down for many days. Their sister companies BuySideRealty and BuySideMortgage also seem to be down. Iggys House provided sellers with a free MSL listing service and the ability to post the property on their site for free. These free services drove traffic to their other fee-generating operations. In 2007, Iggys House had revenues of $224,631 and a net loss of $1,300,873. In January, Iggys House pulled its IPO that was expected to raise between $15 and 18 million. From their Form S-1 with the SEC: We have a history of losses and may be unable to generate sufficient net revenue in the future to achieve or sustain profitability. We have had losses for each quarterly and annual period since our inception in April 2005. We experienced gross losses in each period since our inception, resulting in net losses of $1,166,731 for the period from ...

Posted in Real Estate News | 14 Comments »

Hoodeo - The Neighborhood Match Maker

June 24, 2008 – 6:21 pm
Hoodeo, a neighborhood match maker site, launched this morning. Hoodeo is an eppraisal.com site and allows users to find a neighborhood that matches your profile. I gave it a try and it suggested I live in Cherry Creek, a suburb of Denver CO. I would say that matches me. There were no rental or forsale properties though. It would be nice to have an option to show properties that match my profile as well.

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Top Fittest and Fattest Cities and their Average Rental Price

June 21, 2008 – 9:28 am
The top 10 Healthiest Cities in the United States: San Jose, Ca - average rental price - $2006 Washington, DC - average rental price - $2056 San Francisco - average rental price - $2399 Seattle - average rental price - $1658 Salt Lake City - average rental price - $1146 Oakland - average rental price - $2186 Sacramento - average rental price - $1187 Orange County, Ca - average rental price - $2455 Denver - average rental price - $1127 Austin - average rental price - $1174 The Top 10 Fattest Cities in the United States Detroit - average rental price - $836 Houston - average rental price - $1393 Dallas - average rental price - $1664 San Antonio - average rental price - $850 Chicago - average rental price - $1839 Fort Worth - average rental price - $1177 Philadelphia - average rental price - $1377 Arlington, Texas - average rental price - $1107 Cleveland, Ohio - average rental price -$849 Columbus, Ohio -average rental price - $901

Posted in Rental Market, Rental Prices | 1 Comment »

Google to Compete with Compete, Alexa, Comscore and Others

June 20, 2008 – 4:09 pm
Google has been doing Google Trends and popular searches for a while now. For example, below are the top searches for June 20th 2008. Trends for Websites combines information from a variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. The data is aggregated over millions of users, powered by computer algorithms, and doesn't contain personally identifiable information. Additionally, Google Trends for Websites only shows results for sites that receive a significant amount of traffic, and enforces minimum thresholds for inclusion in the tool.

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Redfin Co-Founder and Ex-Zillowite to Launch Fridge Door

June 20, 2008 – 10:48 am
Michael Dougherty, who co-founded Redfin and was then at Zillow, will be launching a new start-up called Fridge Door. SeattlePI.com says the start-up will not be in the real estate space but rather the "personal communications space." I am also guessing that Fridge Door will not be the name used for the start-up after launch considering fridgedoor.com is already taken and they sell refrigerator magnets.

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For you Facebook Fans - Facebook in Real Life

June 20, 2008 – 8:16 am
What if we acted the same way in real life as we do on Facebook? It may look something like this: [youtube]nrlSkU0TFLs[/youtube]

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How To Negotiate an Apartment Lease

June 19, 2008 – 8:40 pm
[youtube]nov4DDgMN1g[/youtube]

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5 Tips to Save on your Monthly Rent

June 19, 2008 – 8:22 pm
One thing to consider when buying any service or product is that everything is negotiable. Below are some tips and tricks to use when trying to save money on your lease. 1) Look for rental properties during these months (Nov - Dec - Jan - Feb) : These are historically the worst months to try to rent out a property. There are less people actually looking to move during these months but that is precisely why you can save money if you move during this time period. The landlords are more flexible in working with you because of the slowness in demand. 2)  Use Rental Comparables Tools: How do you know what something should be worth. Without going into Supply and Demand curves and evaluating the equilibrium price, an easier way to determine price is to see what other like rental houses are going for in the same area as well as how long ...

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Top 11 Real Estate Widgets

June 9, 2008 – 1:53 pm
There are millions of widgets being designed by programmers and added to WidgetBox, FaceBook, and Google. What are the top real estate widgets? Here is what we found: For Sale Properties  Trulia Widgets: Home Appraisal  Zillow Widgets: eppraisal Widgets: Rentals and Rental Rates  rentBits Widgets: Zilpy Widgets: Classifieds  vFlyer widgets: Real Estate Investing  BiggerPockets Widgets: Real Estate Research  AlosResearch Widgets: Mapping RentVine Widgets:  Real Estate News MSNBC Real Estate Widget: Topix Real Estate Widget:

Posted in Real Estate Investing, Real Estate Technology, Real Estate Tips | 1 Comment »

Microsoft Classifieds Shutting Down

June 9, 2008 – 1:00 pm
Microsoft has decided to shut down the not so popular classifieds site expo.live.com. Microsoft launched expo.live.com about 2 years ago to compete with Craigslist and Kijiji.com. From the site: Windows Live Expo will discontinue service on 31 July 2008. In preparation, the following features are no longer available: Create a new account. Post a new listing. Extend a listing. Upgrade a listing to a premium listing. All current listings will remain on expo.live.com until they expire.

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Vast Powers Overstock.com Real Estate

June 6, 2008 – 3:12 pm
Inman News just wrote that Overstock.com has launched a real estate search engine. The Overstock.com real estate channel claims 2.9 million properties, including 2.6 million residential listings. Of those, 1.96 million are single-family homes, 246,000 are condos and townhouses, and another 73,720 are multi-unit properties. Overstock.com did not respond to a request for comment on the source of the listings and other information on the new real estate channel by press time. After taking a closer look at the listings I noticed these results looked similar to the Vast.com search results. After further investigation I found that the description tag within the source code has: Vast is going head to head with Oodle when it comes to powering sites. We will see more of these real estate partnerships entering the market soon.

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MyNewPlace Rolls out Cost Per Lead and Subscription Model

June 6, 2008 – 11:08 am
We wrote about this last month and now it is confirmed that MyNewPlace has rolled out a Cost Per Lead and Subscription model. Here is how the program will work: Pay Per Qualified Lead * Only pay when you receive a qualified lead interested in your community. * Receive priority placement in search returns. * Budget for leads by capping the number you wish to receive monthly. Subscription * Receive unlimited leads for one low monthly rate. * Perfect for higher traffic properties * Receive priority placement in search returns. I am not sure if the Cost Per Lease model will still be part of this offering. Perhaps someone from MyNewPlace can let us know.

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