Eric Blackwell's Blog: All Categories

If you have been ANYWHERE on the real estate web world lately, you have heard about Marc Rasmussen's battle with the Sarasota Association of REALTORS and their abusive tactics in taking the authority that he has created/built over several years and taking it away.  Details are here. (Morgan on a personal note-you are doing a stellar job of advocating and supporting Marc...I have no idea of everything you've done, but what I have seen shows me a LOT about you. Kudos)

It is apparent to me that this is a simple act of jealousy by cowards. Redirecting the domain should have been enough. Period. The Board of the Sarasota Association of REALTORS is ALL culpable for their actions. (And I know at least one of them and it HURTS to say that.) If they disagree with…

Well, isn't that nice. I woke up Saturday morning to read an email from a fellow blogger telling me that Trulia is now hiring a "team" of real estate industry execs to go influence and "connect with" NAR and local MLS's.  He posted it here on my blog (he's a reporter).  I have spent much of the weekend thinking (and editorializing about the implications of this.

Lobbyists.

Great. Now we are left with the task of combating the mis-information on both the REALTOR and the MLS / NAR level. 

Here's two open questions for the industry:

Aren't lobbyists hired to convince people in another industry to do stuff THEIR way? Whether it is RIGHT or not? They answer to the dudes that pay them. Plain and simple.

How's this strategy working for Congress and the…

$7500 Tax Credit?

Congress recently passed (and the president signed into law yesterday) a housing stimulus package that has been billed as the $7500 Tax Credit for first time buyers. What does this mean to frist time home buyers? The correct answer is--it depends.

First off, we know that people are inquisitive about the tax credit and we are getting more than a few questions here at RE/MAX Properties East about it. We have put together an information pack about the details of the new law...as always, we recommend that you visit with a competent financial professional before doing anything.  That is always good advise!

Secondly, it is not, by precise terms, a tax "credit". It is actually a no interest loan over 15 years. You GET the tax "credit" for…

My last REW blog post was about (of all things...) the keywords that we use nowadays that were not used before. Terms like "Short Sale" were simply not in the lexicon until recently.

As part of that post, I made mention of my friend (and REALTOR) in our office, Anne Mayhugh. I wrote about her experience with investment properties in Louisville and how she really knows her stuff. Little did I know that this would reach someone who was looking for someone just like Anne to help her. I received a blog message via email this past weekend from the NICEST person.

Here is a little of what she wrote:

"Hi Eric, I saw your blog and am interested in getting in contact with Anne. If you could forward this information to her, I'd greatly appreciate it. I am a…

365 days ago, the term "short sale" was just barely a blip on the lexicon. Now, everyone seems to know what they are. I had an internet lead the other day from our main site asking specifically. "I need short sale help. Please call me." (that's a quote).

I don't know about your market, but in Louisville, the foreclosure market is picking up big time. One member of our blogging team jumped in and created a Louisville Short Sales and Real Estate Investing Blog. (Great Job Anne, BTW). She has actually been on this side of the business for years and is an awesome agent IMO.

Since being on our team comes with a few **cough** advantages **cough**, she made it up to #2 on Google for the term "Louisville Short sales" (relatively little competition there) along…

Well, we finally did it! We rolled out a new Open House section last week for our site. The goal was to create a place for the 120 agents in our office to be able to post their open houses that would provide them traffic and exposure far beyond the levels of the Louisville Courier Cournal (local paper).

One nice thing about having 120 agents in your office is that they have a lot of open houses! Currently on our site we have 23 open houses scheduled for this weekend! Each open house has a date and time, brief decsription, driving directions and contact information for the showing agent in case people want to come early to view the properties.

One of the challenges of this project is keeping it current. We pull open houses currently from theMLS and enter…

I really enjoy sharing some of the more creative things that some of the 120 REALTORS in our office do. They are amazing. One of the more unique and creative teams for us is the Medley - Sokoler Team. They are always coming up with new and inventive ways to effectively brand themeselves.

The funny part about a slower market is that it typically has one of two effects on people. Either they spend more time hanging out at the office and commenting on the economic weather, or they "double down" and use the available time to dig even harder to differentiate themselves. Bob called some of his favorite past clients, asked them to visit him at the office and as fast as you can say "Bob's your uncle." He created a testimonial video. Bob just sent me the ROUGH…

As winners of the Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World SEO contest, Team Eric has chosen to raffle off the generous prize of one template REW site with CORE IDX -- Hosted for life!

Special thanks to Morgan Carey and REW for the prize . We will be promoting it all over the real estate internet space and hold the raffle on June 1st 2008.

NOTE: There are restrictions as to who can win the prize! We want it to go to a REALTOR who can truly use it to its potential.

All of the proceeds from the raffle go to the Eco Preservation Society of Costa Rica.  Entries are $35 for one or $100 for 4!

Heres the link to the PayPal info and Rules and Regs for the Raffle!

Thanks for the great prize Morgan!

Best;

Eric