Real Estate professionals, want to know what clients really think about you? Want to hear what they really want or what they’re interested in?

You should check out Tweet Scan. Tweet Scan is a web application that allows you to type in any keyword you want, I did “Real Estate” and it shows you all the latest Twitters that contain the word real estate.

I’ve come accross some pretty neat marketing tricks from other Agents this way, give it a try.

By the way:  For those of you who are not familiar with Twitter.com, it is a web application that allows you to send out a short message to everyone updating them as to what you are doing, or whatever you want.  Think of it like a mini-blog.  People can subscribe to you and follow what you’re doing or “twittering” about. So far, Twitter is over 1 million users strong and growing every day.

Matt Keenan, recruiter here at PMZ, showed me an interesting website called Jott.com that allows you to send emails with your voice.

How it works, You set up an account online, add your contacts, call an 800 number, speak the name of the person you want to “jott” a message to, and speak your message.  Your message will then be transcribed and delivered to that persons email.

It’s a cool service if you are on the road checking your email, but don’t want to type a long message into your Blackberry or iPhone.

The only downfall is that when the person receieves your email, it has Jott.com branding everywhere on it, so be wary and send the email to yourself and forward it without the extra branding when you get home.

Proposition 13, the voter initiative passed in 1978, allows property owners protection from skyrocketing property taxes.

If you are a parent selling or transferring title of your home to your child or a child doing the same to your parents, then your property can be excluded from reassessment under proposition 13.

This law applies not only to parents and children but also to parents and son-in-laws and daughter-in-laws so long as they’re not divorced.

However, in order to take advantage of these exemptions you must apply for them; they do not happen automatically.

Talk to a professional tax consultant if you feel you can take advantage of this exemption to save some money.

Thanks to Jon Zagaris for pointing this out.

The weather is getting even better! It’s supposed to hit 90° here in Modesto, CA.  What a perfect time for an open house.  Denise Lones at the Realty times offers some tips for handling an open house successfully, including:

• Researching the neighborhood so when potential buyers have questions about nearby school, supermarkets, shopping centers, you will be able to provide them with confident answers
• Advertising your open house online, through your email list, in the newspaper and with street and yard signs.
• Create a good rapport with potential clients whether they be buyers or sellers in the future that remembered your dynamic personality. Answer the door, don’t “hide in the kitchen.”

I think one of the best tips she offered (all of them are great) is giving your clients a list of homes that is around the same price range of the open house they are visiting. Include pictures, driving directions and a space for notes for each listing.

I know it’s kind of a “duh” statement, but they do, and the more you have, the better. It’s quite embarrassing to say, but there are some agent’s who are just too lazy or just don’t get it. If you are one of the MANY that do get it, pat yourself on the back, you were paying attention during Realtor 101. For those of you who still question, please, read on…

According to RISMedia,

“Research reveals that the more photos a listing has, the quicker it sells. A property with a single photo spent 70 days on the market (DOM) on average, while DOM fell to 40 with six photos, 36 with 16 to 19 photos, and 32 with 20 photos. Additionally, listings with one photo sold for 91.2 percent of the original price, while homes with six or more sold for 95 percent of the original price.”

I bring this up for two reasons. One, I had a discussion with some folks over at ActiveRain about how taking professional photos of your listings is a better idea than being utterly lazy and waiting for your local MLS to swing by with their $2 disposable camera, or just not posting photos at all.

“The photos to be used in an agent’s marketing materials should be taken by a professional, with experts noting that sellers will recoup the costs of professional photos if their homes sell faster and at a higher price.”

Two, because I go through listings all the time and find properties without photos! Sometimes there might be a legitimate reason. Like the agent believes a picture of the property will actually deter people from taking a look at it because it is in such disrepair.

However, it is always better to be upfront. You don’t want to show a house or waste a clients time with a property that doesn’t match what they’re looking for. Maybe someone is looking for a fixer-upper?

Bottom line: put pictures, virtual tours and great descriptions in your listings. Take some time. It will prove to be worth the effort.

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.

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.

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.