Christian Real Estate Network
Why Work with a Christian Real Estate Agent?
Buying or selling a home is one of the most important decisions you will ever make in your life. It involves a lot of money, time, and emotions. You want to make sure that you are working with someone who understands your needs, values, and goals.
That’s why working with a Christian real estate agent can be a great choice for you. A Christian real estate agent is someone who shares your faith and worldview, and who can help you find or sell your home in a way that honors God and serves others.
Here are some of the benefits of working with a Christian real estate agent:
- You can trust them to be honest, ethical, and professional. A Christian real estate agent follows the biblical principles of honesty, integrity, and excellence in their work. They will not lie to you, cheat you, or pressure you into making a decision that is not right for you. They will respect your wishes and preferences, and treat you with dignity and kindness.
- You can rely on them to be knowledgeable, experienced, and resourceful. A Christian real estate agent has the skills and expertise to help you navigate the complex and competitive real estate market. They will do their research, negotiate on your behalf, and handle all the paperwork and details for you. They will also have access to a network of other Christian professionals, such as lenders, inspectors, contractors, and lawyers, who can assist you with your transaction.
- You can connect with them on a personal and spiritual level. A Christian real estate agent is more than just a business partner; they are also a friend and a brother or sister in Christ. They will listen to your concerns, support your dreams, and pray for your success. They will also understand your culture and point you to neighborhoods, churches, schools, and other institutions where you can find your new community.
Working with a Christian real estate agent can make your home buying or selling experience more enjoyable, rewarding, and meaningful. If you are looking for a Christian Realtor, you can visit the Christian Real Estate Network to request an agent anywhere in the country.
Won't be long now...
Again, I am so sorry for the wait. We are working hard to get everything up and running on the new platform. It seems that even the feedburner feed is having a hard time.
If you are just itching to read something, check out our active rain blog: www.Activerain.com/hismove We are posting there almost daily.Thanks for your patience!
bLoG UnDeR CoNsTrUcTiOn.......
Please excuse the mess on our Blog... we are currently experiencing some problems with blogger, and have finally decided to throw in the towel and redesign from the ground up using a completely different platform.
But don't fret because will still be posting over the next week or two until things get straightened out. You can always subscribe with our feedburner account:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/hismove The feedburner feed will stay the same even through our transition, so that is probably the best one to use as our RSS feed is totally haywire at the moment.
Thank you for your patience.
2006 3rd Quarter NAR Report Shows National Home Sales Falling
In an
article and
press release just put out by the
NAR, statistics confirm a turn around in the market. In other words, this report simply confirmed what everyone knew already... that we have transitioned into a buyer's market.
Here are some National statistics from the article:
- Total Home Sales are down 12.7%
- Median sales price for single family homes are down 1.2%
The NAR's chief economist had this to say:
"David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said market conditions are nearly the opposite of a year ago. “Last year we had a record sales market and historically tight supplies of homes with buyers bidding over the asking price,” he said. “With the market in full transition, buyers now have choices and sellers are more willing to negotiate – under these circumstances it’s no surprise that overall home prices are slightly below a year ago. We expect this trend to continue in the months ahead, but we’ll see modest appreciation in most of the country in 2007.”
District Court Rules: Craigslist.com is Not in Violation of Fair Housing
Craigslist.com was recently sued by a Committee of lawyers in Chicago for alleged discrimination and violation of the fair housing act.
Here is a quote from
Inman news:
"The online classified service Craigslist.org is not a publisher and can't be forced to stop its users from posting alleged discriminatory housing advertisements, a U.S. District Court Judge has ruled.
The ruling is the latest of several in which courts have held that Web sites that serve as intermediaries to allow users to post ads or commentary enjoy protections under the Communications Decency Act not afforded to print publications such as newspapers."
The article goes on to talk about the official view of HUD on the subject:
"Some Web sites assert that they are exempt from liability under (the Fair Housing Act) because of a provision in the Communications Decency Act which limits the liability of interactive computer services for content originating with a third party user of the service," wrote Bryan Greene, HUD's deputy assistant secretary for enforcement and programs. "However, HUD has concluded that the (Communications Decency Act) does not make Web sites immune from liability under the Fair Housing Act or from liability under state and local laws that HUD has certified as substantially equivalent to the Fair Housing Act."
This is an interesting battle, and I'm sure that we will see many more lawsuits of this kind in the coming months and years. Another official statement by HUD encouraged similar investigations into alleged acts of violations on websites with 3rd party information similar to craigslist, and instructed it's regional directors, to pay close attention to such alleged violations.
Finally... a Feed That Works
For all of our subscribers frustrated with our RSS feed situation... you need not fret any longer.
We have finally consolidated all of our feeds into one easy to use
Feedburner account.
Here is the link to the feedSo, if you were subscribed to our RSS or Atom feed through a news reader like
Bloglines, this feed will no longer be active, and you will need to re-subscribe with the new feed.
We have also added the ability to subscribe via email. Just complete the form on the right, and you will be emailed when we post something new.
P.S. - If you haven't upgraded your browser to
Firefox 2 yet, you need to get on the
bandwagon. The updated RSS support and new features are awesome!
TomatoBlogs.com: A New Angle on the Business Blog
I was impressed earlier today when I noticed the launch of
TomatoBlogs.com I have been a fan of
Jim Cronin's Real Estate Tomato Blog since it began earlier this year. He is definitely on my
top reading list. Probably in the top 5 blogs that I read everyday.
Anyways... he has begun a service that creates custom business blogs. This is obviously not a new idea, but one thing that intrigued me about the service is that it comes with 12 weeks of classes that essentially teach you how to blog effectively. Here is an excerpt from the site:
"Training includes:Blogging 101 and website management
Elegant and effective writing styles
Participation and syndication
Search engine and traffic statistic analysis"
Getting Your Website listed in DMOZ
What the heck is DMOZ???
It is a human edited directory of websites from every category imaginable from all across the web. For a long time, search engines have placed a high importance on any links coming from this directory. Since it is managed by humans, it has a very high success rate when it comes to filtering spam websites, and thus any links coming from it are considered very valuable.
The downside to DMOZ is obvious... how in the world can a small group of people expect to be able to manually catalogue all or most of the sites on the internet? It is a daunting task. During busy times, a submission can take as long as 3-6 months before it is considered for listing. One of the frustrating problems with DMOZ is the infrastructure. The site crashes often, or is so slow that it is unusable. Also, once your site is reviewed, and listed/denied... There is no system to contact the submitter. This becomes very frustrating after waiting 5+ months for your site to show up, and waiting in anticipation to see if you were accepted. I mean, how hard is it to set up an automated email??
There are other problems... Getting listed can be tough because if they don't like you, you will be blacklisted forever, and won't be able to be listed. Their reviewers tend to be finicky in my experience, and if they don't like your website for some reason, you will be blacklisted. I happen to be one of the editors (it isn't hard to become one,
just apply), and I've seen how some of the other editors act sometimes on personal preference instead of acting appropriately within their category.
BTW, I didn't mean to bash DMOZ in any way (it is a noble cause), but it is good to be aware of the problems, and be careful about your submissions.
Tips:
- Never submit your site more than once. This will drop you to the bottom of the list or get your URL blacklisted. If you don't hear anything for 6 months, go to the forum and ask one of the devs about your URL. They will be able to look it up for you to check status. (But for goodness sake, be nice to them, and don't pester them about a submission you made only 2 weeks ago.)
- Write accurate non-promotional titles and descriptions. Nothing flashy, just a basic description of your site. Remember, no one will probably find your website through looking on the directory... your primary purpose is to get the link.
- Do some extra research to make sure that you submit your site to the proper category. This will help smooth along the process.
- If you notice that the best category for your site does not have a reviewer, and it has less than 30 links, you are eligible to apply to be a reviewer or "editor". This is a great way to get your site listed... just do it yourself! Just make sure that you disclose that you are the owner of a website that will fit in that category, and be upfront about your purpose.
Bottomline: You want your site listed on DMOZ. Just be careful. Follow the above tips.
Teri Isner Reaches 100k Points on Active Rain - A Real Estate Industry Benchmark
If you are active in the online real estate community these days, you have probably heard of a networking community called
Active Rain. It is a wonderful group of real estate professionals from around the country that meet online and network together through blogging on the Active Rain website. Still in the early stages, it is primarily used for agent to agent networking and referrals, but in the future, if it grows the way the founders want it to, it will evolve into a great place for the consumer to find real estate professionals around the country.
The viral growth of AR within the real estate community is outstanding... In only a few short months, the membership has grown to over 8,000. Part of the reason is the ingenious point system that the creators of AR have implemented from the beginning. Each member is awarded points for certain tasks completed on the site. Some tasks are as simple as adding more of a description to your profile page, or adding your picture.
In a brilliant move by AR, each member that is referred to the network by another member receives 25 free points, and 10% of that members points thereafter. This alone has been a huge reason for the exponential viral growth within the AR community. Besides referrals, the two primary ways to score points on AR are through blogging, and commenting on blogs. Without a doubt, this has been the number one reason AR is valuable to the real estate community.
I
viewed an interview of
Matt Heaton and
Caleb Mardini (2 of the founders of AR) that really opened my eyes to one of the primary goals of AR... and that is teaching real estate agents how to market themselves through blogging, with a point reward system. Each point earned within the AR community has a deeper purpose behind it: teaching the member how to blog effectively, and learn healthy online networking habits.
Points are scored for posting up to 10 posts per week to your blog: a very healthy pace for any real estate professional to shoot for. And each member can be awarded points for commenting on up to 10 blog posts per day belonging to other members... again promoting the networking aspect of blogging... Put together, all of these practices are a must for any web savvy real estate professional, and the point system is just a great way to teach people how to best use their time online effectively.
This is obviously not the only reason AR exists, but as one of it's primary functions, I thought it would be an important topic to blog about. The timing also happens to be appropriate because a benchmark has been reached within the AR community. And to
fullfill my promise, I wanted to write a special post to congratulate the member that was the first to reach 100,000 points...
Teri Isner
I first noticed Teri as a very active blogger on the AR network over a month ago. She was consistently posting 3+ posts per day, and was rated as the #1 Active Rain member for number of points.
Later I was able to run over to her 2 websites:
Orlando Real Estate Listings &
Orlando Real Estate I especially liked the first because it uses a custom made monopoly board as a navigation tool on the site, and was very original with extremely good content. It seemed fitting that the number one AR member would have such a cool website. I was also very impressed to see that she had her very own monthly
real estate podcast, which is something you don't see very often on a real estate agent's website. She also had a very good
Orlando Real Estate Blog that, as far as I can tell, is completely separate from her AR blog.
I don't know Teri personally, but her online presence is very attractive. I just want to offer one more congratulations to her for being the first member to reach 100,000 points. I look forward to many more of her posts on the AR network, and will watch her career with anticipation...
I am also really looking forward to the future growth of Active Rain. Here's hoping the Network will continue to flourish and be a great place for real estate professionals and consumers alike.
Experiment: Provide Free Access to MLS Listings for Colorado
ColoradoListings.netJust wanted to write a quick post about a website we have called ColoradoListings.net. It is an experiment in providing free MLS listings for a particular region with no obligation. There are too many sites out there that make you complete a boring and lengthy application just to view a few MLS listings.
We don't do that. We provide everything for free. You don't have to enter any personal information, not even a name or email. View all of the
MLS Real Estate listings for Denver and most of Colorado. You can even sign up to receive email when a particular property comes on the market that fits your criteria. But you won't ever receive any solicitation emails from us. Just good up to date info on live listings.
Let us know what you think...
Married Couples Now in the Minority of U.S. Homes
I found this
New York Times article compliments of
The Real Estate Bloggers. According to recent census data, in 2005, married couples living together under one roof were eclipsed by non-married couples.
Here is an excerpt from the NYT article:
"The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census Bureau, found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.
'It’s the legacy of the boomers that have finally caused this tipping point,' Dr. Frey said. 'Certainly later generations have followed in boomer footsteps, with high levels of living together before marriage, and more flexible lifestyles. But the boomers were the trailblazers, once again, rebelling against a norm their parents epitomized.
'This would seem to close the book on the Ozzie and Harriet era that characterized much of the last century,' he said."
While the Real Estate Bloggers focused more on the advantages of being able to target market to non-married couples. I'm more concerned about the moral fabric of our society. I was shocked when I read this article... it just goes to show where the average American home is headed in the 21st century: away from commitment in relationships. Marriage definitely
has it's benefits... aside from the obvious companionship and all the other wonderful things that God intended it to be.
Now how does this relate to our real estate blog you might ask? Well, I definitely agree that it is important to know the demographic of an area to be able to market efficiently. Services like
Neighboroo.com are a step in the right direction. But more importantly, I think we need to know the needs of our clients, and data like this can be very useful.
I was just personally saddened by these statistics... I believe that it shows a trend in our country that is moving in the wrongdirection.
