HomeGain folks Matt Malmgren, Salvatore Giammarresi and Kevin Malmgren are off to Long Beach, California today to meet up with Realtors at the California REALTORS^® Expo this week.

Real estate agents and brokers who visit the HomeGain booth #820 will have an opportunity to:

• Win giveaways, including Max, the HomeGain gorilla, and a Flip Ultra™ camcorder
• Hear about the latest marketing products and strategies to help their business grow, including AgentView
• Get a discount on new memberships
• See demonstrations and takeaway free tools like the Home Sale Maximizer™ guide

We look forward to seeing all you California Realtors there!

The number one thing that has helped my real estate career has been reading blogs. 

Through my years in real estate, I have gotten almost no help from my colleagues or brokers. The philosophy was that we were in direct competition with each other so we could not share our ideas or expertise because it might hurt our career. Almost no agents would divulge any of their so called “secrets”. If a real estate agent would give up any of their knowledge, it was at a price.

I am so glad I discovered Web 2.0. What I learned was it is ok to share knowledge and ideas. It will not hurt me. It will help build a supportive community and it will help the real estate industry as a whole.

Here are some things I have learned by reading blogs:

• Social media, especially Twitter
• About blogging and blogging ideas
• All about video
• Virtual tour options
• Moo cards
• Marketing techniques
• Advertising
• Real estate news
• What to put on my website
• How to treat clients

 And much, much more.

My favorite real estate blogs are: Continue reading this post

Market update provided by Jim Paulson, Broker-Owner of Progressive Realty Corp in Meridian, Idaho.

Inventory is dropping even though historically it is still too high.  We have over nine months of available inventory based on current sales levels.

Many homes in Meridian, Idaho are sitting stagnant on the market because home sellers have refused to price them at realistic prices.  If you look at the raw numbers from the MLS it is easy to see why some homes are selling and some aren’t!

These numbers illustrate what a few people have been saying on this website for a year – we need more affordable homes since that is what is selling.  When you look at the median price of all the homes that sold in Meridian last month, you get $215,000.  If you don’t like that number look at the average and you get Continue reading this post

Home Sales Results by MSA For AgentEvaluator™ Agents

As we wrap up one of the most heated presidential campaigns in recent times this month and constituents everywhere head to the polls on November 4th, voters in towns all over America, worried about the troubled economy, have a major concern.

That is, they still need to provide a roof over their heads for their families, either as a homeowner, renter, or perhaps by residing with family.

Even as we are saturated with doom and gloom in the media and falling home prices , things do not change. Life goes on regardless of the turbulent economy and current housing crisis.

As Realtors, we are here to help serve people with that need, and our help is perhaps required more than ever in these challenging times.

There is still plenty of activity out there in the market, albeit more “tire kickers” than you’ll find in a normal, balanced market. Real estate agents tell me home buyers’ and sellers’ expectations are slowly adjusting to the market in many areas.

Listed here are the top 10 areas for both home buyers and home sellers where HomeGain consumers closed sales during the first three quarters of 2008.

Continue reading this post

San Diego real estate performed exactly as I thought it would in 2008; the lower-priced homes (under $500,000) dropped like a ball off a table while the mid-priced homes ($500,000-$1,000,000) declined and the luxury homes($1,000,000 plus) were soft.  The key theme for the San Diego housing market decline in 2008 was foreclosure activity.  Loans were made to borrowers who had no chance of paying them.  Those failed loans resulted in increased inventory.  That market’s key financing component (non-prime loans) dried up so fewer buyers could buy the lower-priced homes; priced dropped…a lot.

In my 2009 San Diego Housing Industry Forecast, I said:

I mentioned on another post, that weblog since disappeared, that the San Diego County housing market would bifurcate.  I suspected that any income growth would happen on the top end and that the bottom half would see little to no income growth.  Combine that with a liquidity crisis and the lower-end homes would get slaughtered while the upper-end would just decline a bit. That happened in San Diego County; lower priced homes are starting to make lots of sense right now.

I explain in my 2009 San Diego Real Estate Outlook that the low end of San Diego’s housing stock is actually approaching reasonable prices:

Communities like Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos, and Escondido in the North County declined as much as 55%, peak to trough.  The entire South Bay experienced severe declines.  Lower income areas of the City of San Diego and the East County experienced steep declines.  Some areas declined so much that their prices have retreated to point where investment makes complete sense.  The fundamental value of those properties, as measured by the price to rent ratio, is such that it’s less expensive to own rather than to rent; we haven’t seen that phenomenon in San Diego County since 1999. Continue reading this post

Inman News has named HomeGain’s General Manager, Louis Cammarosano, one of the “Top 100 Most Influential Leaders of 2008” in the Technology and Real Estate category.

Inman reports that the top 100 list reflects the real estate industry’s best and brightest and who embody leadership, innovation, ingenuity, power and persistence.

HomeGain has been receiving increasing recognition over the past year due to several HomeGain initiatives, including:

• The HomeGain Real Estate Blog – Nominated as Most Innovative Real Estate Blog of 2008 by Inman News
• The launch of the Max – HomeGain’s gorilla – Marketing Campaign that includes a fleet of advertising vehicles, online ad campaign, trade show appearances and blogs
• Relaunch of its instant home prices tool that also incorporates new features
• The launch of its marketing product, AgentView, a product that features Realtor listings, blogs, profiles and other real estate content in an advertising-free environment
• The launch of the HomeGain Agent Blogging Network
• Announcement of free Agent Blogs for AgentView members to use as a marketing tool to reach consumers in their local market
• Launch of the HomeGain Blogging School featuring Joseph Ferrara as the Blogging Professor for real estate agents who subscribe to AgentView to get monthly blogging tips
• Integration of its Home Sale Maximizer tool into AgentView

Join us in congratulating Louis!

See Louis’ Linked In profile here.

Louis Cammarosano was also named to Inman News People to Watch in 2007.

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