If you can’t beat them JOIN them!
Social networking sites are one of the best ways to ride the wave to the top spots in the Goolge and Yahoo search engines. By featuring your real estate or financial web site in your social network profiles and groups you increase your popularity with the search engines. This is achieved by what is known as “Backlinking”. Search engines often use the number of backlinks that a website has as one of the factors for determining that website’s search engine ranking.
Most of the sites allow you to start your own membership group that enables you to sign members up and discuss topics of your choosing. You then become the moderator of your own networking community.
Real Estate Loop is a member of the following social networking sites. I have signed up with each of the sites below and given my personal opinion of them.
Myspace.com
If you don’t know what Myspace is then you have been living under a rock. In my personal opinion Myspace has become way too bloated with junk ads and porn ads. I somehow feel that this could lead to Myspace’s down fall if they do not do something about it.
Facebook.com
More than 65 million active users, and has an average of 250,000 new registrations per day since January 2007. Facebook is the sixth-most trafficked site in the United States (comScore). Facebook to me is probably the most organized social networking site hands down. There are hundreds of real estate and financial groups to join and communicate with others. Facebook also gives you the ability to start your own group.
Activerain.com
Active rain is a social network and marketing platform for real estate professionals. This network helps agents to create business relationships both within the industry and with the consumer. This site gives its users a score board to keep you as active as possible. Your points are given by your level of participation with your profile and communication between fellow members. The more points you earn the higher you climb in the active rain community.
This site provides a great opportunity for real estate professionals to communicate with each other across town or across the country for the purposes of building and cultivating professional relationships, sending or receiving referrals and sharing professional information. The Profile Wizard makes things a piece of cake. It took me about 5 minutes to get my profile up and running. Great looking site!
Squidoo.com
Squidoo is becoming one of my favorite social networking sites the more I play around with its features the more addicted I become. Very easy to read and setup.
Navigation is a bit tricky but still easy to easy to manage. Personal Profile took me about 8 to 10 minutes to set-up. One of the best things about WannaNetwork in my opinion is the community forums. The forums are very active, easy to read, and the moderators come up with some fun and interesting ideas to keep the forum populated.
I have followed this site even before it became a social networking site with custom profiles. The site founder is Joshua Dorkin. I have to say this site has been part of my inspiration to start my own real estate web site. The site not only offers a place to set up your own profile it offers plenty of useful information. Great looking site offers a community forum and setup only took less than 5 minutes.
There is not too much to this site when it comes to profiles. You are given a contact section, about me Section, and a picture. The site does allow you to start your own blog. I currently have not setup a blog with real town but I fully intend to. Sign up and instructions on creating a blog with them can be found here :
Realestateinvestor.com
This site focuses on the real estate investor. The web site reminds me of an investor web site. On first glance I thought it was going to be a site that sold short sale training DVDs. I have to say this web site is very easy to read. The font size seems enormous and letter spacing makes it easy on the eyes. This site also offers more than just a profile setup. The forums are populated with people and the site provides a nice amount of educational material for beginners.
Here are some social networking sites that are popular outside the United States.
Orkut.com
Orkut is big in South America.
Bebo.com
Bebo is the second largest social network in the UK behind Facebook.
Real Estate Loop The Beginning
For the last month I have been trying to think of a direction I would like to take for this real estate & financial blog. After being introduced to the blogging world I have become extremely addicted to it. I definitely have been thinking of steering clear of too many news articles and trying to focus on making the blog more human. After all I figure anyone can surf over to Yahoo, CNN, or MSN, to get the daily dish of real estate news articles. Most of you have these sites as your homepage. So I decided to bring my knowledge of real estate, internet marketing, and web design all rolled in to one blog.
I will focus on internet marketing strategies for the real estate professionals. Reviews from different web sites and online products that are changing the way we as real estate professionals do business today.
Swanepoel 2008 Real Estate Trends illustrate a chart that shows how real estate and technology have come along in the past 12 years.
Swanepoel TRENDS Report 2008
Stefan Swanepoel
170 pages, RealSure 2008
The future of real estate networking will mostly be done over the internet. Blogs, web sites, forums, and social networking sites will be the way we do business.
Self Direct your IRA into Real Estate
What is a Self Directed IRA?
A self-directed IRA is no different than any other IRA. Having a self-directed IRA simply means you are allowed to direct the investments of the IRA.
Use your IRA to invest in Real Estate
Very few Americans realize that they have the option to self-direct their IRAs and other retirement plans into real estate, and benefit from the tax advantages those plans provide. If you currently are a successful real estate investor, or are just looking to diversify your retirement portfolio, the combination of real estate and your IRA can be very powerful.
Tax Advantages
Investments in IRAs benefit from tax-deferred profits or in some cases tax-free profits. Imagine not having to pay taxes right away, or ever, on your real estate deals. Instead of paying 25%, or 30%, or even 50% of your profits to the government in taxes, you get to keep it.
The Effect of Taxes on Your Money
Let’s look at a simple, real world example. If you were to contribute $4,000 a year to an IRA and assume an 8% rate of return for 30 years, yourself directed IRA would be worth $449,133 at the end of year 30. If you made the same investment in a non-tax sheltered environment, assuming a 31% tax rate, it would be worth $286,752 instead of $449,133. That is 43% less, a difference of $162,381 (as shown in the chart below).
Self Directed IRAs and the Power of Compounding Interest
How does it work? The power of compounding interest comes from the fact that the original investment, as well as the income derived from that investment, is re-invested. Compounding interest can be especially dramatic when the effect of taxes is removed from the equation. Do you know how much money you would have in 30 years if you invested just one penny today and doubled it every year? The answer will astound you: it is $10,737,418! Now, suppose you had to pay taxes of 31% on your investment? Over the same 30 years, you would have only $68,644. Obviously, no one can expect to double an investment every year for 30 years. Nonetheless, this example certainly illustrates the combined effects of compound interest and taxation.
Where can I get a Self Directed IRA?
I personally use “Equity Trust Company” but I also hear a lot of people use “Pensco Trust“. A lot of my information came from these two companies web sites and offer even more great resources. In fact Pensco’s web site offers a weekly radio show that invites other investors on to speak about how they invested their self directed IRA’s. I have searched the web for other companies and found GuidantFinancial, Sunwest Trust, and Bank Of Amercia just to name a few. Im sure with a more extensive Google search you can find more. But the most popular to me seems to be Pensco Trust and Equity Trust Company.
Supreme Court Rules That Creditors May Not Seize IRA Assets in Bankruptcy Proceedings
In a huge victory for managed and self-directed IRA owners everywhere, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that IRAs receive Federal Creditor Protection. This means that creditors cannot seize assets in an Individual Retirement Account. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that IRAs should join pensions, 401(k)s, Social Security and other benefits tied to age, illness or disability, that are afforded protection under federal bankruptcy law and thus shielded from creditors in bankruptcy proceedings.
Until recently, IRA protection was covered by state laws, which varied to a great extent on coverage provided. This ambiguity led to a great deal of confusion and uncertainty for IRA owners wondering how their assets were protected from creditors.
The case before the Supreme Court was heard because of a lower court ruling against IRA protection based on the faulty notion that since investors can make IRA withdrawals at any time, IRAs are similar to savings accounts, which are unprotected from creditors under bankruptcy law.
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Mortgage Meltdown
Sunday, December 9, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
MORTGAGE MELTDOWN/Interest rate ‘freeze’ - the real story is fraud/Bankers pay lip service to families while scurrying to avert suits, prison
Sean Olender
New proposals to ease our great mortgage meltdown keep rolling in. First the Treasury Department urged the creation of a new fund that would buy risky mortgage bonds as a tactic to hide what those bonds were really worth. (Not much.) Then the idea was to use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy the risky loans, even if it was clear that U.S. taxpayers would eventually be stuck with the bill. But that plan went south after Fannie suffered a new accounting scandal, and Freddie’s existing loan losses shot up more than expected.
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