Recent information from the Survey of Consumer Finances by the US Federal Reserve indicates that most of all the wealth in America is concentrated among homeowners.

The average homeowners net worth is $171,700 and the average renters net worth is a measly $4,800.

If you’re a renter, now might be the time to sit down and take a good look at your finances. Get in touch with a Realtor who can help you get prequalified for a home mortgage. Housing prices are quite attractive right now and you can find a great deal on Real Estate.

Stop paying your landlords mortgage and start investing in yourself, and your future.

I subscribe to a lot of different news feeds so that I can stay on top of the latest marketing and advertising trends.  I received a research brief from the Center for Media Research today that discusses the increase of wealthy consumers joining social networks.

According to the Luxury Institute, from 2007 there was a 60% increase of wealthy consumers joining social networks such as MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook.

To capture as much market share you can I suggest joining multiple social networks.  PMZ belongs to many including: MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and ActiveRain.  It’s free advertising and in these groups you can keep your contact up to date on things you find important, deals on new listings, or anything else you’d like to broadcast to the world.  You might even gain referrals from unexpected sources.

Read more about it here.

When someone does a search for Property Management, or Restaurant or Real Estate Agent for your local city on Google, a list of “Local Business Results” pops up at the beginning of the search results with a map.

Our property management division, Liberty Property Management, is high on the list for the Modesto area, and I wanted to find out how to get it high on the list for some of the other areas we do business in.

I did a search to get some tips and stumbled accross the article, How to Rank Higher in Google Local, on WebProNews.com

Here are some tips I think will be helpful for you:

• Get links from as many websites as you can.  Google Local results seem to rank results the same way Google Search results do.  The more links you have to your site, the more credible and the higher rank you will have.
• If you don’t have a website for your business, get one!  If you still refuse, you will be missing out on a lot of potential business. If you are stubborn, or just don’t have the resources, submit your business to different online yellow pages like Super Pages and Insider Pages.

These should get you started.

The National Association of Realtors filed an application with the National Credit Union Administration to create it’s own web-based credit union for NAR members.  They’ve noted that since Realtors® are independent contractors, traditional credit unions and banks aren’t able to support the needs of the modern day Realtor®.

The Realtors® Federal Credit Union will offer exclusive features to Realtors® such as:

• New Realtor® start-up loans
• Commission advances
• Business payroll and more…

NAR expects approval of their application from the NCUA by the end of the year.

Click here for the NAR’s Realtor® Federal Credit Union brochure for more information.

For our insured and for our agents who spend countless hours on their cellphones, take heed of the new cellphone law in effect July 1st of this year. At that time, it will be a ticketable offense to talk on your cell phone while driving. That means you can get pulled over and fined $20 for the first offense and $50 for subsequent offenses.

There are some exceptions, you can still:

• Use a hands free device such as a Bluetooth headset
• Use your cell phone’s speaker phone functionality
• Dial numbers
• Text message (WARNING: It is at the officers discretion to ticket.)
• Use push-to-talk if you are operating commercial vehicles
• Emergency vehicles such as ambulances and firetrucks

The law takes effect on July 1, 2008 and there is no grace period.

PMZ Insurance Services commented that, “while there is no point charged for a violation, we are unsure how this will be handled by insurance carriers. The seat belt laws that were put into place years ago do not charge points against your license, but Insurance companies do take these into consideration – especially if there are two or more or if the driver has other violations too.”

If you want more information, check out the attached CHP Cell Phone Law FAQ Sheet or contact PMZ Insurance Services at (209) 338-0385.

On March 8th, PMZ’s Oakdale Residential Division participated in the 3rd annual Oakdale Home and Garden Show as the sole company representing the Real Estate industry. They met with over 4,000 Oakdale citizens to answer questions regarding buying and selling homes, market conditions and they even made some new friends along the way. Great job agents!

PMZ now dominates the Oakdale Real Estate market in closed sales as they continue to expand to meet their customer’s demand for excellent, personal, and effective service.

Stop by our PMZ Oakdale office to discuss any questions you have regarding buying and selling property and information on how you can get a great deal on a bank owned property.

Agents, I know many of you have your own websites that you promote.  It might have happened to you already too; you get that call from an unknown number that is trying to sell you an Search Engine Optimization(SEO) package.  Claiming they can get you onto the first page of Google within a week.

Be wary. Many of these SEO experts don’t help optimize your website for search engines, but instead want you to spend money on Pay Per Click(PPC) advertising.  This is the type of advertising you see on the right side of Google when you do a search for real estate or any other hot keyword(s).  While effective, this type of advertising could end up costing you a good chunk of change and might not give you the long term results you are looking for. Actual SEO is the optimizing of your website and it’s structure so that search engines can crawl it easily and the process of adding unique content, to name a few tactics.
The best thing to do is ask questions.  Ask your technology experts at your real estate firm about the credibility of the companies calling you.  It’s likely that they will either know right away, or with a little research will be able to tell you whether or not that SEO company is not only reliable, but delivers results.

Also, ask the SEO experts about your website.  Have they actually been to your website? Do they know how old your website is? Do they know where it currently ranks?

Asking questions and staying informed will help keep you a leader in your industry and also save you from being taken advantage of.

The wildly popular, infinitely useful, online classified ads website, Craigslist, was found not guilty of charges from Chicago based Civil Rights attorney group that claimed Craigslist violated federal housing laws and was responsible for posting ads that excluded potential buyers or tenants on the basis of race, gender or religion.

Since Craigslist allows it’s users to post unedited classified ads, it is protected under the Communications Decency Act. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said this ruling means that, “the soapbox is not liable for what the speaker said.” Keeping Craigslist and sites like it, free from liability when it comes to it’s users’ posted content.

The appeals court didn’t rule out investigating individuals who post discriminatory ads onto Craigslist, which some argue, is a more appropriate approach to dealing with the matter.

An abundance of homes for sale, aggressive pricing and low mortgage rates has created the “perfect storm” for homebuyers in 2008. And, with spring fast approaching, typically the busiest season for home sales, prospective buyers are gearing up for weekend model home tours and open house events

“As spring approaches, we expect to see buyers who have been sitting on the fence begin to take action,” said Jackie Alexander, a vice president of sales and marketing for Beazer Homes, one of the nation’s top-10 home builders. “More and more people are waking up to the tremendous buying opportunities that are out there today.”

Indeed, the National Association of Home Builders reported in February that prospective buyer traffic has picked up considerably in model homes across the country. And, a recent consumer poll conducted on behalf of Beazer found that 64 percent of respondents believe that for those with good credit and a down payment “this is an ideal time to buy a home.

Alexander advises those shopping for a new home to develop a list of questions to ask sellers along with their must-have features. She says doing the due diligence up front is the key to getting the most “bang for the buck” in the current housing market.

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I ask myself everyday, “How can I build a more financially stable future for myself?” I’m sure it’s a question on many young people’s minds and something everyone is concerned with.

James Surowiecki, a respected journalist for The New Yorker, editorialized that as many as 15 million homeowners now owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth and that homeownership is not building wealth for these people.

The fact is, buying a home is one of the single most important investments an American consumer can make. Here’s why:

• Interest rates on home equity lines of credit are far below the rates of most credit cards, so homeowners who are able to tap into those lines for emergencies accumulate LESS DEBT than renters forced to charge expenses at higher rates.
• Overall, the median net worth of a lower-income homeowner is more than 13 times that of a renter with a comparable income, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
• Ownership is forced saving. Typically, payments in the first few years of a mortgage are applied to interest. As time passes, however, more and more of each payment is applied to the outstanding loan amount, accumulating equity that can be recaptured, if needed, through an equity line of credit or when the house sells.

As you can see, while the popular media touts how awful an investment in a home might be, it is still the best investment consumers can make.

With interest rates as low as they are now, and home prices softening, the housing market hasn’t seen a better selection of homes in quite a while. Right now is a great time to talk to a Realtor® and find financing for your investment.