Realty World Northern California & Nevada

The California Association of REALTORS® provides a very useful chart for guiding clients to qualification requirements, including what forms to file for both the Federal and California State tax credits. 

With most new homebuilders willing to cooperate with brokers and agents in the representation of a new home purchase, this is a great time to make sure that agents get the word out about the availability of current Federal and State tax credits to both their past and potential clients. The tax credits offered today, along with historically low interest rates, provide unprecedented opportunities for today’s homebuyers.

There are 5,668 tax credit applications submitted to date, resulting in over one-half of the current $100 million tax credit already having been claimed. Assembly Bill 765 was recently introduced and, if passed, will provide an additional 20,000 taxpayers the opportunity to take advantage of the popular new home California State income tax credit of up to $10,000. AB 765 calls for increasing the existing $100 million California new home tax credit program cap to $300 million. If AB 765 becomes law, it estimates 30,000 new homebuyers would benefit from the program.

Terri Adamo
Franchise Sales Director
Terri.Adamo@rwnc.net

Every business in America today is searching and redefining their bastions and strongholds for increased profitability and growth in a rapidly changing world. Not an evening news program goes without devoting some segment to the economy and the consequences business faces in the days ahead.

The Realty World Member who has participated in our technology rollout sessions has exposed themselves to one of the most important business tools for this new world of real estate. From marketing, advertising and business efficiencies of all sorts, all combined into a single user interface. 

I’d like to personally thank everyone who has attended these sessions for your time and investment in learning more about the tools of the new frontier. Yet similarly, as a crop needs water to provide a good yield; your blog and your site require close attention and personal involvement to produce traffic.

Adaptive change is the only constant in changing markets – that, we know. There are a series of WebEx sessions I encourage you to get involved with and plans to have a comprehensive online video library for your use are forthcoming. 

Finally, I’d like to extend my gratitude to those who’ve sent emails, messages, notes and cards expressing their support and enthusiastic acceptance to this new and aggressive direction and operational strategy. We truly believe we are on track to craft and deliver systems that are beyond your expectations and that will help you gain a disproportionate share of your market place. 

Scott LeForce
President
Scott.LeForce@rwnc.net

Last week I attended a seminar organized by the National Association of REALTORS at the Doubletree Hotel in Sacramento. The seminar was titled “Survival Guide” and was supposed to be a workshop to teach Realtors the value of social network marketing and how incorporating Internet marketing could help reduce traditional marketing budgets during the current real estate market.

The conference was held from 9:00am to 1:00pm, yet only one hour covered how agents could effectively use Facebook, Twitter, and several other social media portals. To be fair, the presenter was very knowledgeable on the subject and did a good job of conveying to Realtors the nuances of the “soft sell” style of social media versus the traditional direct sales approach. Even so, he neglected to mention his position as Vice President of Realtor.com before proceeding to call all the attendees to join him in worship of Realtor.com for the remaining three hours of the seminar. This bothered me on two levels. First, I’m part of a generation that doesn’t want to be given a free vacation only to find out, with skis in hand and goggles on in the lounge, that it’s only free if I listen to a 90 minute timeshare presentation. If someone is going to hold a seminar to teach Realtors how to take advantage of social media, that had better be the only thing they talk about because I’m going to feel very angry when Realtor.com sales reps are waiting at the back of the banquet hall as was my experience last week.

Second, the idea of selling Realtor.com as the latest and greatest way to market listings on the Internet is pretty shaky at best. I did a little “comparison shopping” with Realtor.com’s competitor, Trulia.com. Trulia.com’s information is a thousand percent better and included actual test scores for schools with links to their websites, crime statistics, and a myriad of other things not mentioned or poorly covered on Realtor.com. Also, the look and feel of Realtor.com is about as user friendly and aesthetically pleasing as IRS.gov.
 
What amazed me most were not the staggering inadequacies of Realtor.com compared to sites like Trulia, but the fervor with which the Realtors at the conference ran to the back of the room to buy featured listing zip codes that were sold like Google stock on a fire sale. Out of curiosity, when did buyers only look at and buy properties that are featured? Don’t most buyers end up looking at all the homes they can and buying the one they see themselves being happy in? These Realtors were signing up to spend, for some zip codes, hundreds of dollars per month. They were also signing up for a monthly fee structure that is based on their past year’s transactions just to have extra photos and their contact information included with their listings. Maybe I missed something, but isn’t this site endorsed by NAR? So, in essence, aren’t we already paying for it?

Try this on for size: Trulia.com is a flat monthly fee; Craigslist.com is free. Realtors need to educate themselves more about the plethora of cheap and/or free portals on the Internet that won’t gouge them to run their businesses.

Or better yet, join a company that already does all this for you.   

T.J. Shanahan
Social Media Manager
tj@rwnc.net