If you enjoy looking at stocks you have got to check out Yahoo’s real time streamer located Yahoo Finance. See it in action (if market is open of course)
This makes Google Finance look lame. Compare.
The rapper 50 Cent showed off his CT home on MYV Cribs and the house is LARGE. 6 huge kitchens and 36 bathrooms large! The entire house is not on the show because it is massive. This home is on the market as well.
Specs:
51,657 Sq Ft. GLA
17.6 Acres
19 bedrooms
36 bathrooms
6 large kitchens
Then this video shows what the actual show couldn’t:
I saw this article and laughed out loud. The article talks about punctuation in real estate classifieds. They claim when the market is down you see more exclamation points and caps. This is a crap claim because on Craigslist you always see excessive amounts of punctuation and caps no matter what the market is. You think people didn’t do this when the market was HOT? It’s called standing out and people have been doing it for as long as Craigslist has been free!
If you want to test this theory go to your local paper where people pay by character and line to see if this holds true - not the free craigslist.
It’s late and I am thinking about logos that, well, make you think. As my new side venture is about 80% complete I am thinking about what type of logo I need. I am picky. Selecting a logo is not easy - just too many things to bring together. My venture is real estate related but I’m not going with a house. I hate when companies do this.
I like hidden meanings and abstract concepts. A swoosh can also be fun. I have never seen a cool real estate agency logo but I hope to create a fun real estate web service logo within the next few weeks.
Maybe…buildings. hmm
I saw this post on FOREM about a Florida agent who made a “sexy” video for marketing purposes. I honestly don’t get it and I am all for different types of marketing, but I am not sure I would want to be associated with this type of marketing. If one of my agents did this I would have told the agent to remove it from all sites immediately. The video I watched had nothing to do with real estate. I knew it was for real estate but if I didn’t read a blog post about the clip I would have thought it was for a vacation resort of some sort. Bikini’s, beaches and water usually means resort to me. Sex sells for a vacation.
We know that “sex sells” but it all depends on the market. Vacation yes, real estate, no. Here in Boston - it gets HOT! Sexiness is appealing. We have tons of schools in and around the city and sex drips off the streets. However, in real estate, it’s not about hot females at all. When you think about sexiness in real estate (or in Boston) it’s about the sexy complex name and sexy amenities.
My company has a few services and I would not want my full service division to be associated with this type of sexy.
Now as most of you know I an open to wacky and edgy marketing methods but this wasn’t produced well enough for my taste. To me, it’s not sexy. You’d get more exposure if you produce a good commercial with a nip slip!
This is up for debate but I feel real estate professionals should be using a Tumble Blog.
Why? Because most don’t have the time nor do they have things of interest to say. Usually realty bloggers give up after 5 posts.
The only problem with these types of blogs is that they don’t rank well because they lack content. It takes about 250 words per page to get noticed. Tumble Blogs are not meant for long post, but I think this is better than nothing.
I have one, but I use this one more.
I have no idea how this got into my email but it did. This is a bad sign because the last company to go IPO who asked their customers if they wanted in on the IPO was Vonage and this little service hasn’t seen the light of day since.
Here’s the letter:
Iggys House
Dear [redacted],
As you may know, Iggys House, Inc. is in the process of going public. Iggys House is the parent company of BuySide Realty. Some of our customers have expressed an interest in investing in our initial public offering.
We started our “road show” for the offering, and expect to continue it over the next few weeks. We have created an online version of the road show presentation. Here is the link:
http://www.retailroadshow.com/links/show.asp?c=IGGY
The following is a summary of our proposed public offering. You should carefully read and consider the information contained in our preliminary prospectus for the offering before making an investment decision.
Click here to view our prospectus.
We have filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with an initial public offering of 1,400,000 units, with each unit consisting of one share of our common stock, and one Class A warrant and one Class B warrant.
The initial public offering price of the units is $6.00 per unit.
Each Class A warrant entitles its holder to purchase one share of our common stock at an exercise price of $7.50 (125% of the initial public offering price) and is exercisable for 12 months following the closing of the offering. Each Class B warrant entitles its holder to purchase one share of our common stock at an exercise price of $9.00 (150% of the initial public offering price) and is exercisable for 36 months following the closing of the offering.
We have applied to have our units, shares of common stock and Class A and Class B warrants listed on the NASDAQ Capital Market under the ticker symbols “IGGYU,” “IGGY,” “IGGYA,” and “IGGYB,” respectively.
Our initial public offering will be undertaken pursuant to a firm commitment underwriting. The managing underwriters are Northland Securities, Inc. and Bathgate Capital Partners LLC.
How to Invest
If you wish to learn more about how to invest in our initial public offering, please contact us at IPO@IggysHouse.com, and we will direct you to one of our designated underwriter representatives.
Best regards,
Joseph J. Fox
Chief Executive Officer
Iggys House, Inc.
About Iggys House, Inc.
We are an online real estate company that offers innovative services to home buyers and sellers. We share with each buyer 75% of the commission we receive from the seller or listing broker.
We provide sellers with free MLS listing services and the ability to post homes on our website for no charge.
A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the registration statement has become effective, and any such offer may be withdrawn or revoked, without obligation or commitment of any kind, at any time prior to notice of its acceptance given after the effective date. An indication of interest in response to this notice will involve no obligation or commitment of any kind. This notice shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state.
Iggys House, Inc.
1 South Wacker, Suite 1900
Chicago, IL 60606
I am working on a real estate platform and I have a team of programmers working with me on various parts. One of my gurus is living in Shenzhen, China. I was not sure what time it was in this location so I typed the following into Google: Shenzhen, China time
This works for anywhere in the world. Booya!
If you are the type of person who uses an ear piece with mobile phone you are missing out unless you have a Jawbone device!. This is the #1 noise cancellation piece ever made.
November is usually dead, but for some reason I am getting slammed. The market is slower than years past - but not this month. When you least want it - you get it! I just want to relax right now.
I just noticed a news flash on the Rhode Statewide MLS website I am not sure what the owners Edward and Tracie Kedzierski did but they lost the right to practice real estate. The Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation made them refer current listings out to other companies.
This is a big deal. I wonder what they did.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this type of transaction? If someone cannot purchase outright doesn’t this mean it is a very risking process for the seller?
Regardless of what you are doing in real estate finding a good partner, limited or not, it’s a very tough job. I have investor clients who are generally the happiest people but when you mention partnerships they go sour. They have been there and done that and still feel the pain today.
Investments partnerships are one thing but finding a partner to partner up with is even more difficult. I get asked all the time if I would be interested in partnering up. I think about it, talk to them, think about it more - then say no. Why? Well partnerships need to be 50 / 50 from the ground up. This means if neither like the name they create a new one until they both like it. You need to have a level playing field between partners. Never partner with someone who is not smarter than you. If not smarter than they better have a quality that you do not have. Do not partner with a clone of yourself.
For example, if I was looking for a partner I would find someone who blogs, stays up on local developments, enjoys technology, finds time to discuss happenings over Starbucks. Someone who gets the new web and wants to streamline the brokerage/sales process through the use of technologies that bring everyone together.
We may need an office but we do not need a ton of overhead. The point is that before you select a partner, the partner needs to be on the same page.
Sometimes I can’t sleep because my mind is racing. Unfortunately, I can’t help it. Sure, Ambian can sometimes help but my thoughts will just run wild in the morning.
Needless to say I have a lot on my mind lately and it’s time to sort things out and push on through. Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about opening up another agency - a different type of agency.
Lets go back a bit:
I come from a large real estate family. We pretty much pioneered the concept of buyer agency in Massachusetts when it was virtually untested. Since I am the youngest one in my family I started a bit late. (however, youngest in my family doesn’t mean least experience. I have 4 states and tons of deals under my belt.)
I was dedicated to buyer agency but now since its mainstream I am doing something else. Well, sort of. I still represent referred buyers and will even go beyond this at times but I most focus on the selling side now. I pretty much mastered the buy side. How many people do you know who could get buyers to sign an exclusive buyers agent contract years ago? My old company has been doing for like 18 years now or something. It’s sad bacause buyers who didn’t use us were missing out on so much; however, it was great to see the look on client faces when they compared us to the agent they were dealing with before. Night/Day! I kind of miss that!
After this, I moved on and work on building a real estate company. It was part a full service agency but it wasn’t what I wanted. I sold some pieces off and decided that I wanted to build something that will make a difference - if not for consumers perhaps for my agents.
I have been sitting on an idea for about a year now and I think its time to bring it to fruition. So, right now I have Hillman Real Estate Inc. (semi full service brokerage) and under this company I have InstaMLS.com - providing flat fee MLS service in MA, RI, CT, NH. Now I think its time to bring back the buyer agency like I was born to do.
Going Virtual:
My venture is going to be a click and mortar shop some where either in Brookline or Back Bay but we will also have a Virtual Office platform that will be used to communicate with many workers (independent contractors). I have a background in tech and getting everything together will take time but it will be tougher to find the right vendors for the platform - but I think I have things sorted for now.
Setting things up like this is where I thrive. I learnt from the best. I could have been a consultant, but I’m not sure real estate and consulting works well together since you either understand it or you don’t in this industry. Everyone has their own formula for success.
As my readers know I am launching a real estate platform soon and the actual release date is looking like Jan or Feb 2008. I am pumped.
I promise this will be game changing and get all you real estate professionals real leads - perhaps HOT ones. This is nothing like anything else on the market.
Like I have previously said this platform is for consumers and real estate professionals. The site will be free and supported by different types of advertising campaigns.
If you do not know me I am not just another real estate professional trying to create something I have no clue about. My background is not only real estate but web development. I never thought this would be a killer combo until a couple of years ago. If you have a hobby you can bring into your professional life do it.