I did take some short beach shots at Birch Bay as well, but not sure how to work those into the car Vlog yet. Anyway in the order that the Vlogs were done today here they are:
The above was on the drive out to Birch Bay, driving on I-5. I switched sides that I filmed from because of lighting.
The above Vlog is taken from the Spit at Semiahmoo.
From the Patio / Deck on the North side of the Semiahmoo Resort just off Packer’s Lounge.
The above is from Horizon At Semiahmoo
My Drive back from Birch Bay / Semiahmoo. Some additional commentary on Birch Bay and The C Shop.
So we are having a bit of a challenge with Blogger updating our company blog located at http://realestate.bellingham.net/blog/ so I’ve decided to post up my current blog post relating to short sales here on my personal blog.
I posted a few weeks ago about the challenges of Short Sales however it seemed to me that putting up an additional Vlog post on the subject would make some sense as well.
Anyway check out the Vlog post. Comments appreciated.
There is a Groundswell going on with regard to Twitter and community building. Earlier today I read this on my Twitter Stream from @LoriLeavitEvans. She was ReTweeting something another local Twitter person had tweeted earlier:
RT @harmonymatters: This is nifty! DM orders for coffee, drinks, food.. why not? http://tinyurl.com/dgxe9g Retailers: great idea here!
about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck
I dug into this story and this points toward how Twitter is being used in a community and has created buzz not to mention increasing the business of a coffee shop.
Essentially a local coffee shop in Houston got into the Twittersphere and has been receiving a significant number of orders not to mention a significant local following via Twitter.
Check out the article, check out my Vlog above and let me know what you think.
Okay, I’ve been reading Groundswell and in it it talks about the fact that 28% of the U.S. population likes to watch user generated video which is more then the 25% of consumers who like to read blogs. My guess is that a significant portion of the audience who might read this blog will also watch video, so in looking at different video equipment I went out and bought a Insignia 720p Camera from Best Buy for $99.99. Add the 4 Gig memory chip for an additional $14.99, I now have a really cool set-up for recording video in my home office.
I’ve had a Playstation 3 for a little over a year. Shortly after I picked up a Samsung 1080p 63″ Plasma for our wall in the living room and wanted to play Blue Ray Discs on it for maximum resolution.
Shortly after that we signed up for Netflix which has a lot of Blue Ray disks and for the $18/month it seemed better then going down to the video store and finding out that movies that we wanted to watch were already checked out.
Netflix on the website talked about “Watch Instantly” but I don’t really like watching movies at my desk in the home office so I didn’t take advantage of the Watch Instantly option. A couple of months ago it started to dawn on me that maybe I could watch the movies through my Playstation 3. Well it turns out that Netflix isn’t compatible with Playstation 3, only the X-Box 360. Not to be deterred I continued to look for other options. Then I found PlayOn
http://www.themediamall.com/playon which claimed to work with Netflix. I installed the 15 day trial and in addition to Netflix I discovered a whole new way to watch video on demand.
Essentially PlayOn installs into the background of one of your ’s and then processes the video from numerous sources on demand from the Playstation3. We have a wireless network so it then broadcasts the video to our Playstation 3 wirelessly and the Playstation 3 puts it to the Plasma.
Hulu is included with the PlayOn and once I signed up for a Hulu account I now have access to many of the latest episodes of tons of TV shows, movies ect with very limited commercial, It’s awesome. Looking at a lot of the redundant programming we had from Cable we have dropped all but limited basic cable and have saved around $80/month just by installing a $30 piece of software. Of course you do need high speed internet to be able to watch all these shows on Demand, so we still have a $50 bill per month for internet with our provider Comcast, however we would have that anyway.
Now I just need to figure out how to be able to add to my “Watch Instantly Queue” on Netflix from my iPhone.
Okay, I’ve been an Apple fan since I first got my Apple ][ with plus card back in 1978. That machine had a whopping 48K of Ram with an additional 16K Ram card, 2 - 5 1/4" Floppy Drives, a Green Phosphorous Monitor, a numeric keypad, a couple of game paddles and a 9 pin dot matrix printer. I think the whole package set my dad back $7000 CND (we lived in Langley BC at the time).
Well I’ve recently upgraded my iTunes as I do every couple of months since the software prompts me to update on a regular basis. I’ve been running iTunes with AirTunes and subsequently with two different Apple TV units.
First of all if you have a great stereo system definitely invest in some way to port music from your iTunes to your Stereo. I recommend AirTunes as the AppleTV Unit which will work as well when streaming from iTunes on a computer through the AppleTV unit isn’t as solid as using the AirTunes.
If you aren’t one to like to put together individual playlists and if doing a shuffle through a particular genre doesn’t quite do it for you, you are going to love Genius. I am rediscovering my music collection. I pick one song that I like and then click on Genius and it puts together a list of songs from numerous albums that go together and fits the theme of the initial music. Since my music tends to range from Jazz, to Pop to Electronic to Instrumental this has allowed me to listen to music in a whole different way. It’s like having a DJ that likes the type of music that I love inside my computer.
Anyway if you haven’t used the Genius Sidebar definitely try it out… It will take your listening to a whole different level.
I’ll admit it… I’m pissed off at USAirways right now. I recently purchased a airline ticket for an associate of mine on U.S. Airways and unfortunately my associate was unable to take advantage of the flight. The flight was $425 and I was unable to cancel the ticket in time to ultimately get some credit for the flight. This is a complete contrast to Southwest Airlines which is my preferred airline anyway where if I don’t show up for the flight I get 100% credit for the flight on a future flight. There is no need to call and cancel the flight. Southwest has already taken into account that a % of the people who book flights won’t make the flight and they simply allow you to use the flight credit on a future flight.
This is a huge difference. As one person who takes care of travel arrangements for a number of people in the company that I run there are times when I am unable to cancel a flight in time and as such Southwest will now be my airline of choice.
Even after calling USAirways and asking for credit (which in my opinion should have been the value of the flight less $150) they indicated that the ticket had no value at all. You would think that USAirways would have provided some credit. Anyway they didn’t so consider this my first of many vents on the experience.
Now to find some other blogs where others have had a similar experience and add my comments to those blogs.
All I can say is I’m glad there is Southwest Airlines. They might not have assigned seating however they do have have the most flexible travel program available of any airline that I know of. As a result I predict that in five years we will all be flying Southwest.
Okay it’s not just another SEO Company, it’s an SEO Company that I’ve started called Working The Magic, LLC. As many of you know I have been working on growing BuyerTours Realty LLC into a multi-state and multi-city real estate company over the last few years which has continued to grow even in the face of a declining and slowing real estate market. We have been able to dominate the search engine in numerous markets however running a real estate company is sometimes an exercise in herding cats.
During the last few years while I or one of the marketing staff was doing work relating to positioning our websites we would often say we were “Working The Magic” of Search Engine positioning. Some of the lead agents were obviously very protective of what we were doing with regard to web positioning since we have been busy working with clients and closing deals while most agents have suffered significant declines in the number of transactions that they have been able to do whether on the listing or buyer representation side.
Anyway this year I decided it was time to share what we know with other agents in markets that we are either not in or don’t have an interest in being in and it has been interesting now that we are in the SEO business getting the word out about our abilities takes a bit more work then I had expected. I do now remember when starting my real estate practice in 2002 how I had to keep raising the bar in all areas of the business until we got the traction that has ultimately launched us to where we are now… Anyway one can’t rest on their laurels when starting a new enterprise. One must bring game to the table… If that’s the case then Game is coming to the table…
Check out the website as well as the blog attached to it for my SEO commentary…
A couple of weeks ago I spent a few days with Hobb Herder in a course called MegaManagement. I have since signed up for their coaching for owners and managers of real estate offices however one of the things that I came home with was the idea that most real estate offices are essentially dinosaurs. They are effectively frogs in a pot of water that has become fatally hot and yet they have no idea that it is happening. What they do know is that its hard to recruit talent. It’s hard to keep talent. The techniques that most of the offices are coaching are from the 70’s and 80’s and really doesn’t reflect the new internet economy in the least. Hobbs Herder which is an advertising firm for real estate agents really spends a significant amount of time in the off line collatoral business and the building of agents personal brands. First this makes a lot of sense, as most agents don’t have a good idea of how to differentiate themselves from all the other agents in the marketplace. The main reason is that in the personal services industry like being a real estate professional it really comes down to number of impressions over time to become top of mind when your contact or client decides to buy or sell. What is discounted however is the use of social media and how social media has displaced at least for the younger generation print media.
If you read any publication like Inc, or Fast Company you’ve probably seen Facebook mentioned on the cover at least a couple of times this last year and if you took some time to read the article you would see how Facebook started as a place for college students to network. Since that time Facebook has expanded to allow anyone with a social network to build their own relationship trees and to share information with friends and associates. However what may be missed is that Facebook is a highly efficient system for disseminating information about what you are up to to these people. I can’t tell you how many times during the last year I get phone calls from people just wanting to know what I’m up to and we chat and of course I inquire at the same time as to what they are up to. We might chat for 20 minutes while multitasking on the computer or whatever and even though I was in the conversation I forget the commentary. However with Facebook I am able to log into my page. Update information on myself which automatically updates everyone who I’m a friend with on my update so they can see what I’m up to on their Facebook page. What’s even more interesting is how many people are online Facebook of people who I am keeping up to date on Facebook. It seems that Facebook through its highly addicting interface and its efficiency of tranfer of information allows me to see what other people are up to quickly and they are able to do the same with my information. This ultimately makes me more efficient.
Now how does this play into building a personal brand as a real estate or any other personal services professional. Well ultimately you want all your clients to be on Facebook or something like Facebook. Why, for the same reasons I talked about earlier. Clients are looking for highly efficient models of keeping track of everyone else they know including their agents. It keeps us top of mind with our clients and because their friends who will be part of their network will likely look through the photos and “how we met” portions of the friends photos it gives you a way to get referred without even trying.
So what is the message here…. Be on Facebook and make sure that you have invited all of your “good” clients to be on Facebook as well. If you do this then it is highly likely that your client will remember you without having to mail out monthly recipe cards and its likely that your clients friends may end up wanting to be your friend too and ultimately doing business with you.
I am in the fortunate position of living in one of the most beautiful parts of the country in Bellingham Washington and it seems that the rest of the country and the continent for that matter knows it. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released today has the Seattle real estate index as outpreformed the rest of the market with a year over year gain of 9.1% with Portland ranked 3rd in price appreciation at a 5.7% gain. While most of the country suffered declines in values the Pacific Northwest all the way into Vancouver British Columbia have continued marching higher.
Major drivers for Portland and Seattle are tech jobs, not to mention access to outdoor activities not available anywhere else in the country. Bellingham continues to be one of the most popular cities of its size for retirement / recreation and investment. With the valuations of Vancouver BC continuing to climb especially in advance of the 2010 Olympics, as prices skyrocket values values across the border represent to significant a bargin to pass up for real estate starved Canadians, as well as second home purchasers and investors who can no longer afford the price or the perceived risk on property prices in Canada.
Be sure to visit our Bellingham Real Estate site for up to date opportunities in the Pacific Northwest, or drop me an email at Glenn@BuyerTours.com if you care to comment and/or ask me a question about this part of the country.
So we are having a bit of a challenge with Blogger updating our company blog located at http://realestate.bellingham.net/blog/ so I’ve decided to post up my current blog post relating to short sales here on my personal blog.
Okay, I’ve been an Apple fan since I first got my Apple ][ with plus card back in 1978. That machine had a whopping 48K of Ram with an additional 16K Ram card, 2 - 5 1/4" Floppy Drives, a Green Phosphorous Monitor, a numeric keypad, a couple of game paddles and a 9 pin dot matrix printer. I think the whole package set my dad back $7000 CND (we lived in Langley BC at the time).
Okay it’s not just another SEO Company, it’s an SEO Company that I’ve started called 
If you read any publication like Inc, or Fast Company you’ve probably seen Facebook mentioned on the cover at least a couple of times this last year and if you took some time to read the article you would see how Facebook started as a place for college students to network. Since that time Facebook has expanded to allow anyone with a social network to build their own relationship trees and to share information with friends and associates. However what may be missed is that Facebook is a highly efficient system for disseminating information about what you are up to to these people. I can’t tell you how many times during the last year I get phone calls from people just wanting to know what I’m up to and we chat and of course I inquire at the same time as to what they are up to. We might chat for 20 minutes while multitasking on the computer or whatever and even though I was in the conversation I forget the commentary. However with Facebook I am able to log into my page. Update information on myself which automatically updates everyone who I’m a friend with on my update so they can see what I’m up to on their Facebook page. What’s even more interesting is how many people are online Facebook of people who I am keeping up to date on Facebook. It seems that Facebook through its highly addicting interface and its efficiency of tranfer of information allows me to see what other people are up to quickly and they are able to do the same with my information. This ultimately makes me more efficient.