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TRANSPARENT REAL ESTATE (www.TransparentRE.com): Recent Entries

10 Leading Trends for Real Estate in 2009January 2

Wishing all of you a prosperous New Year! (we can use it...). Please also check out 10 Leading Trends for Social Media in 2009 at Media Transparent. 1) 2009 is the Year of the Mortgage.Historically low interest rates artificially pushed down to stabilize the economy will be a once-in-a-lifetime window of opportunity. With economists predicting the 10-year bond rates (which generally correlate with mortgage rates) starting to rise in 2009, expect a wave of refinancing and a return of home buyers/investors wanting to lock down that low rate. When? Once the market is comfortable that a bottom has finally been reached; and that is hard to predict. (According to bond market strategist Tony Crescenzi, new home inventories are plunging). 2) 2009 is the Year of the Economy In the first half of 2009, the new Obama administration will focus solely on righting the economy with stimulus packages and an artificially low interest rate environment. This recession is global, and it seems that the Central Banks around the world will work in concord with similar stimulus policies. The global economic coordination is unprecedented in history and we'll see by summer whether this all works. 3) Consumers Will Demand Online Presence Consumers demand online presence for retailers, travel, cars... everything. Those who aren't providing that presence (note Sears.com below) are being dragged down by their recession-induced low margin / high leverage bricks and mortar business model. The analogy to r

A Simple No-Video / No-Images Merry ChristmasDecember 26 2008

Wishing everybody a Merry Christmas... as in Japanese tradition, we'll be more expressive for New Year's Day! ...

Why Real Time Breaking News and Blogging are ComplementaryDecember 21 2008

Real estate blogging has been a boon to consumers by describing the local housing markets in far greater detail than any news organization. The challenge in blogging has been in consistently maintaining market commentary with a journalistic discipline. I've been discussing the "breaking news" paradigm as the most time efficient way for blocs of agents, whether within a brokerage company or created via social networks, to maintain "ticker tape" market commentary to complement blogging. We're moving into the age of the "Real Time" Web.Robert Scoble points out the problems associated with the compatibility of blogs and the Real Time Web:The first time I saw the real-time web, I saw it when my tweets showed up on Twitter search and friendfeed within minutes. Sometimes within seconds. Now, imagine a world where everything worked like that. That’s the real-time web.The problem is that our blogs don’t participate in the real-time web. They publish via RSS. RSS is not real time. RSS only publishes when a service like Google Reader asks for it. It has no way to wave its hand and tell your reader “hey, there’s something new here for you to get.” So, most RSS aggregators just visit on a regular basis, looking every few minutes to see whether something new has shown up.For blogs that’s just fine. After all, most blogs take a few minutes to a few hours to write and it won’t kill you if you don’t read my words here for 20 minutes or longer.But there’s a new expectation th

Can't Hide if You Have a Facebook AccountDecember 18 2008

Australian Couple Served with Legal Documents via Facebook. Social media meets legal. The world is turning anti-Orwellian; Big Brother doesn't force anybody into an online regimen, they all opt-in voluntarily. Even shady people need an online presence...From the just released 2008 Pew Internet Survey (always a must read), Section 4 on Personal Transparency:Prediction: Transparency heightens individual integrity and forgiveness. In 2020, people are even more open to sharing personal information, opinions, and emotions than they are now. The public’s notion of privacy has changed. People are generally comfortable exchanging the benefits of anonymity for the benefits they perceive in the data being shared by other people and organizations. As people’s lives have become more transparent, they have become more responsible for their own actions and more forgiving of the sometimes-unethical pasts of others. Being “outed” for some past indiscretion in a YouTube video or other pervasive-media form no longer does as much damage as it did back in the first decade of the 21st Century. Carefully investigated reputation corrections and clarifications are a popular daily feature of major media outlets’ online sites . ...

Fed Drops Rates to .25% - Three Signs Augur a Renewed Housing MarketDecember 16 2008

During the week of November 24, mortgage rates dropped sharply as the government announced its $600 billion planned purchases of distressed Fannie/Freddie loans. Mortgage applications jumped but now are subsiding into December; one reason is consumers are watching to see whether rates go lower. Now that the Fed has dropped its discount rate to .25% today, it's certain mortgage rates will continue to drop.Consumers are now preparing to pull the trigger on housing as soon as they see the bottom. This January, three positive signs will converge to augur renewed real estate activity:Obama has pledged to stabilize the housing markets with an aggressive stimulus plan, and according to CNBC today, continued massive buyout of bad mortgages. It's all part of his "Big Bang" inaugural plan.The Fed, by essentially dropping interest rates to 0% will continue to loosen credit by pushing mortgage interest rates towards 4.50%, a target 30-year fixed rate that has gelled in the consumer minds. Once that rate hits 4.50%, consumers will likely consider that rate the bottom (they will likely not see again in their lifetime) and will jump off the fence.Housing starts continue to drop to record lows, easing inventory pressure. ...