According to the FTC, the U.S. government agency that operates the DO NOT CALL program, your Do Not Call registration may need to be updated.  The first registrations, the ones made almost 5 years ago, will expire very soon.  In order to keep on the list you have to update every 5 years.

To see when your number(s) expire, go to the verify page here  https://www.donotcall.gov/confirm/Conf.aspx

The FTC says its NOT necessary to register cell phone numbers because despite information to the contrary, it is illegal for telemarketers to call any cell phone number.

Over 139 million numbers are presently blocked to telemarketers.

 

There is all kinds of real estate news available.  How do you react to it?
Good News:  Despite a slowdown from record breaking sales in recent years, real estate and home sales are still stronger than they were throughout most of recorded history.  Are you getting your share?
Bad News:  Real estate and home sales are worse than in recent years and financing is harder to get.  Did you plan ahead for this downturn and save some money from the hot market years?
Old News:  The real estate market, like every other market, is constantly changing and moves in cycles.  Do you understand how markets work?
New News:  People have a tendency to blame everyone and everthing but themselves for their plight.  The real estate market and the world won't change just for you.  You have to change your ways to adapt to new situations.  What are you doing differently now to take advantage of new opportunities?
Liberal News:  The government will probably bail out borrowers facing foreclosure.  Do you believe this should be government policy?
Conservative News:  The government will probably bail out lenders facing bankruptcy.  Do you think this should be government policy?
Big News:  The United States is not only in an obesity crises for people's body weight, but the average size of homes has increased steadily to the point where they are twice as large as they were 40 years ago.  Do people really need homes so big?
Small News:  While the average home size has increased, the average lot size has decreased.  Many homeowners want less yard to maintain, smaller lots help keep home prices more affordable, and condominiums became popular.  Do you like having a large yard, small yard, or no yard?
Daily News:  We are still in business today.  How do you plan to be in business tomorrow?
Weekly News:  We are still in business this week.  How do you plan to be in business next week?
Monthly News:  We are still in business this month.  What are you doing now to stay in business next month?
Annual News:  We are still in business this year.  The NAR expects membership to decrease next year. What are you doing now to stay in business next year?
Local News:  Real Estate is Local.  Every market is different.  How is your market's news different from the national news?
Sports News:  Every newly signed multi-million dollar athlete needs a home.  Can you help them buy one?  Every wealthy athlete who is traded to another city needs to sell a home.  Can you sell their home?
Financial News:  There are still many lenders with loan packages to match all types of borrowers.  Have you spoken to all of the lenders in your community about their current lending practices?
National News:  The population is still increasing from births and immigration.  Homes still need to be provided for more people every day.  What are you doing to attract new residents to your town?
World News:  Most of the countries in this world have housing shortages.  Can you figure out how to solve this problem?
Your News:  You make your own news.  Don't depend on anyone else to make your success.  What are you doing to keep yourself in the real estate news?

When I have time between transactions, I clean out my paper files and work on my websites.  I just completed checking through all of the UltraStats for my two professional Point2 sites.  Every few months I check the ultrastats to see what search terms visitors use to find my sites.  This tells me what search words and combinations were used on the various search engines. I then can change the Meta Tags and Keywords on each page of each website to reflect what words searchers actual use.  Being on the first page of Google or Yahoo or whatever for a term that is rarely or never used is useless. 
This can be time consuming, but each time I did it, it resulted in a significant increase of traffic and a broader range of words and terms that bring my sites to page one or two on a variety of search engines. 
How many of you work on this aspect of your search engine optimization?  How many of you use the UltraStats in other ways to improve your results?

ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ

1) How long did the Hundred Years War last?
*116 years

2) Which country makes Panama hats?
*Ecuador

3) From which animal do we get cat gut?
*Sheep and Horses

4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
*November

5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?
*Squirrel fur

6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
*Dogs

7) What was King George VI's first name?
*Albert

8) What color is a purple finch?
*Crimson

9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
*New Zealand

10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?
*Orange, of course.

 

Steven Pallesen:  In your picture, who is the team leader?  The one in the right, left, or middle?

I know almost every realtor here works mostly residential, but some of us also do a lot of commercial.
I have a client in desperate need of commercial financing to buy a small $265,000 retail store.  A two to five year balloon with 40% down would work.  The lenders all want 5000 page business plans, $5,000 environmental assessments, 200 page questionaires, all for a little store in a strip center.  It happens to be extremely profitable, but that doesn't seem to matter to the banks. 
Any ideas?  Where are the loan sharks when you need them?

One of my pet peeves is microscopic lettering on business cards.  Tons of ink is used on the photo and almost no ink is used to present the contact information.  Phone and fax numbers and email addresses are written so small and thin they are hard to read, especially on glossy paper.
The population is aging and seniors and even young persons like to be able to read a business card easily.  I know I do.  I made my cards with large lettering and my customers love it.  What do your cards look like? 

Janet,
      To expand on your earlier post about services full service agents can use to compare themselves to discounters, here is my input.
      The following is from my website's Seller Services page.  The underlined words are links that go to other pages that show more details.  Not all of my sellers need or use every service so my commissions are negotiable and vary among clients.  There are also services not listed here that I have done on request, like targeted mailings and magazine ads in different languages.  The total list of services can be endless.  I know agents who do home repairs and landscaping, for example.

Determining YOUR HOME'S VALUE by CMA (Comparative Market Analysis).

Listing in several Multiple Listing Services:  Local MLS, Regional MLS, and National MLS, with information and photos.

Listing on This Website, My Personal Website, and numerous  additional Real Estate Websites with information and photos.    LIST OF ADVERTISING & MARKETING SITES.       

Personal Showings and other Realtor showings.  (I welcome showings and offers from any and all sgents affiliated with other companies.)

Lockbox, when appropriate.   

Unique Advertising and Marketing program designed to suit your specific situation.

Negotiating with Buyers and Buyer's Agents.  

Paperwork explanation and completion.

Ordering Inspections and a Survey.  

Legwork (Document Collection and Delivery).   

Feedback and Advice throughout the selling process.

If hyphens matter in the URL, how about 2 hyphens next to each other? 

The domain I wanted "city-state.com"  is taken, but "city--state.com" with 2 hyphens, is still available.  Would it be worthwhile buying the one with 2 hyphens?

I have a referral who wants to sell property in Sebring, Florida.  How do I use handshake to find a Sebring, Florida based realtor to send this referral to?

Note: this discussion has been moved.