Greg McClelland is our Attorney for the Michigan Association of Realtors.

Back in the summer he rendered an opinion on being able to use Land Contracts in Michigan for claiming the tax credit.

I immediatley posted on it and I am still getting comments and requests for the opinion. Let's say 75 on an outside blog is unbelievable at least for me.

Greg was recently in Ann Arbor teaching a law course on short sales with 2 hours of continuing education. I was so excited to be able to meet Greg and tell him how successfull his opinion had been and the result of posting on it.

One of our Michigan Congressman picked up the post and sent the opinion to the IRS and they in turn confirmed that land contracts in Michigan were acceptable for claiming the tax credit.

Ed Sackley, from Congressman Fred Uptons staff had sent me the confirmation letter and told me to let my blogging friends in Michigan know.

I have received so many calls from across the nation on this as well as in Michigan with people wanting to either sell or were purchasing on land contract.

I know many Realtors here are not in love with NAR or their State Realtor Associations but they really do a good job. Greg jumped all over this, researched it and rendered an opinion which has helped many people be able to buy a home.

************************************************************

Missy Caulk & Team can be reached at 734-216-2822 or email: Missy@MissyCaulk.com

Our TEAM of 6 buyer associates are available to help you relocate to Ann Arbor, Saline, Dexter, Chelsea, Milan, Ypsilanti Township, Clinton, Manchester, Whitmore Lake, or throughout Washtenaw County, MI.

• Free Home Evaluation

• Search the Ann Arbor Area MLS.

• Google Profile

• Market Reports in Real Time Updated Weekly

• Profit from Technology for Realtors and Lenders

Step it up a notch in 2010

• Do you need more subscribers?

• Do you need a goal for blogging?

• In a rut?

Marketing

The end of the year is a good time to evaluate what you are doing and how you can improve? At the end of year I evaluate all my marketing efforts and see what parts of my marketing were producing results and what was a complete waste of time and money.

Each year at the beginning of the year I start a new Excel Sheet,besides the typical NAME, ADDRESS OF HOME SOLD, GROSS COMMISSION, NET COMMISSION, I have probably the most important column SOURCE of BUSINESS.

That is the column I look at and evaluate where my business came from.  If one of the marketing efforts I am doing is producing results, I will usually add more money to that source of business. If one of the programs or places  I marketed on produced nothing...then I am done.

Why throw money at something that is not working?

Blogs

If you are looking for more subscribers, then consider this...

• Are you boring?

• Are the consumers reading?

• What is the bounce rate?

• Are you engaging and authentic?

• Are you getting lost in the multitude of noise out there?

There are so many good sites in which to track your stats, Google Analytics, SiteMeter, GetClicky and see what is producing the most results you are looking for.  On my Activerain blog I look at the Static's page, not many comments on my marketing reports, or listings, but wow the views and clicks are HUGE.

If I take a look at all my posts that have a lot of comments, I never see that many views or clicks. If I had as many views and clicks on featured posts, then the assumption would be that you all here on Activerain are looking and seeing it is a market report or listing, and clicking off. But, that is not the case.  The views are never as high on the marketing reports or listings so I am assuming that the consumer is seeing that listing or market report.

MIX IT UP, PLAN YOUR POSTS

Set aside certain days for certain posts. I typically do market reports only once a month.

I post every new listing to get it the most traction on Google. I do it here and on my Ann Arbor Real Estate Talk blog.

Consumers love to know how the market is doing in your area. I am guilty of presenting the raw data and little commentary. 

This year I am going to do more interpreting the data.

Numbers can be boring to many people, as a professional who looks at the Ann Arbor Area market data and works in the market I am going to explain the data and what it means to the buyers and sellers in the Ann Arbor Area.

We know that national market data is inadequate. What is happening in Ann Arbor, neighborhoods in Saline is so very different than what is happening in Texas or N.Y.

Be creative..go a step further than the actual data. Interpret the data for your consumers. Gosh darn, there is enough knowledge and data out there. Be the person that people trust and want to call.

Blogs and social media sites are the easiest way to build trust and social capital with your clients. Know your stat's, understand what you want to accomplish, make good decisions, earn the trust of the consumers in your area.

Time to step it up a notch in 2010.

Flickr Photo Credit

****************************************************

Missy Caulk & Team can be reached at 734-216-2822 or email: Missy@MissyCaulk.com

Our TEAM of 6 buyer associates are available to help you relocate to Ann Arbor, Saline, Dexter, Chelsea, Milan, Ypsilanti Township, Clinton, Manchester, Whitmore Lake, or throughout Washtenaw County, MI.

• Free Home Evaluation

• Search the Ann Arbor Area MLS.

• Google Profile

• Market Reports in Real Time Updated Weekly

• Profit from Technology for Realtors and Lenders

**************************************************

Missy Caulk & Team can be reached at 734-216-2822 or email: Missy@MissyCaulk.com

Our TEAM of 6 buyer associates are available to help you relocate to Ann Arbor, Saline, Dexter, Chelsea, Milan, Ypsilanti Township, Clinton, Manchester, Whitmore Lake, or throughout Washtenaw County, MI.

• Free Home Evaluation

• Search the Ann Arbor Area MLS.

• Google Profile

• Market Reports in Real Time Updated Weekly

• Profit from Technology for Realtors and Lenders

Lyrics

Cold call costs are much too high!
Outbound on which I rely.
Is there something I can do
That is inbound and fun too?
Blooooooooooging
Blogging every day! Oh!
Blooooooooooging
Blogging every day! Ohhh!

Courtesy of Hub Spot Marketing Blog

Missy Caulk & Team can be reached at 734-216-2822 or email: Missy@MissyCaulk.com

Our TEAM of 6 buyer associates are available to help you relocate to Ann Arbor, Saline, Dexter, Chelsea, Milan, Ypsilanti Township, Clinton, Manchester, Whitmore Lake, or throughout Washtenaw County, MI.

• Free Home Evaluation

• Search the Ann Arbor Area MLS.

• Google Profile

• Market Reports in Real Time Updated Weekly

• Profit from Technology for Realtors and Lenders

This week on Twitter someone posted about a FireFox add on that I went and downloaded. The add on is Cool Previews, by Cooliris.

Wow, this has been a time saver and I have fallen in love with it.

Here's the basics of it.

CoolPreviews is a free browser add-on that lets you preview links and rich media without leaving your current page. Simply mouseover any link or our CoolPreviews icon, and a preview window instantly appears with your content. No more clicking back and forth! Speed through search results, news, and just about any website.

Last night I was reading a blog that had a multitude of comments. In some of the comments beside a link you see this.

When you move your cursor over it the actual site or link opens up to show you what the site is linking to. You never have to leave your site as the window opens right over the top of your without leaving the thread you are reading. You can open up YouTube videos, news stories, email the post, submit to other sites, like Twitter, Facebook or Posterous.

Is CoolPreviews a time saver?

You bettcha.

It works great on Activerain. Now I can be reading a blog, someone has an outgoing link and I don't have to leave the post to see what they are referencing in their post. There is a great tutorial on this site, so I'm not going to post how to customize their preference settings.

Here's to a better blogging experience.

As Life Hacker said, "Best extension ever? Quite possibly."

What are you reading this week?

Are you hanging out in the rain all day?

Not a bad place to be but it is fun to get out there and read what other bloggers are posting on.

Here are ONLY 10 of the interesting things I read this week.

• How to Track Santa

• Have you seen the list of Speakers for the Virtual ReBar Camp?

• How to Increase Blog Traffic

• The Top 10 Biggest Social Media Stories of the Year.

• Find people faster with your Linkedin Search

• 100 Sites to Download Everything.

• The Difference from being A Conservative and being conservative.
• 5 Essential Blogging Tips from Confucius

• The Government is monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other social network sites for....

• Jeff Turner tests Dragon on the IPhone.

Most of the time I just go to my Google feed reader and play catch up. Whenever I find an interesting blog, or a Mac web-site, or some of my peeps I subscribe. I can then go and read them all in one spot.

Are you using a feedreader?

Know what one is? I posted on it back in August 08.

We all have Subscribe to my blog on our profiles and blogs, do you subscribe to yourself?

You should it is a great back-up for all your posts.

Foreclosures throughout Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County.

Many sellers ask me should we sell now or wait until the market comes back?  I answer by telling them two things.

• Why are they selling?
• How do any of us know when the market is coming back?

According to recent data from First American CoreLogic on foreclosures for the Ann Arbor area, the rate of foreclosures among outstanding mortgage loans is 1.29 percent for the month of October, an increase of 0.59 percentage points compared to October of 2008 when the rate was 0.70 percent.

* Foreclosure activity in Ann Arbor is lower than the national foreclosure rate which was 3.02 percent for October 2009, representing a 1.73 percentage point difference.

However in Ann Arbor, the mortgage delinquency rate has increased. According to First American CoreLogic data for October 2009, 4.85 percent of mortgage loans were 90 days or more delinquent compared to 3.25 percent for the same period last year, representing an increase of 1.60 percentage points.

This is a current search as of today, December 10, 2009 of the homes that are bank or government owned in the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors MLS. There is a total of 97 single family homes; but 22 are under contract so 75 are available to purchase.

***Thanks to First American CoreLogic, a member of The First American Corporation (NYSE:FAF) family of companies,  the largest provider of real estate, property and ownership data and advanced analytics for information on foreclosures, delinquencies, median home prices, home price indices, home valuations, sales activity and mortgage loan originations, for the use of their data in this post.***

Ann Arbor Area Home Search

Missy Caulk & Team can be reached at 734-216-2822 or email: Missy@MissyCaulk.com

Our TEAM of 6 buyer associates are available to help you relocate to Ann Arbor, Saline, Dexter, Chelsea, Milan, Ypsilanti Township, Clinton, Manchester, Whitmore Lake, or throughout Washtenaw County, MI.

• Free Home Evaluation

• Search the Ann Arbor Area MLS.

• Google Profile

• Market Reports in Real Time Updated Weekly

• Profit from Technology for Realtors and Lenders

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."   Thomas Jefferson

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government."
Patrick Henry

"It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." Henry Ford

"We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute." Thomas Paine

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. . ." James Madison

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat in our drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labors and in our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people.. must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live..  We have not time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow suffers.  Our landholders, too...retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must...be contented with penury, obscurity and exile.. private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance.

This is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."   Thomas Jefferson

170 Whitlock, Saline, Mi 48176 is open on Sunday December 13th, from 2-4.  170 Whitlock is a charming turn of the century home on Mill Pond.  This home features a large kitchen with vaulted ceilings and a skylight with an abundance of cabinets, and ceramic floors.

Original Hardwood floors throughout.  Enjoy sitting on the expansive porch overlooking Mill Pond.  Master bedroom also afford beautiful views of Mill Pond.  Sitting room or parlor, large formal Dining Rm & Living Rm w/fireplace.  First floor bedroom w/bath. Murphy bed in 3rd bedroom.  Calfornia closets.  All new electric, H2O.

Be a part of Saline’s history.

Hosted by Betty Steele of the Missy Caulk TEAM

Search homes for sale in Saline, Michigan

Missy Caulk & Team can be reached at 734-216-2822 or email: Missy@MissyCaulk.com

Our TEAM of 6 buyer associates are available to help you relocate to Ann Arbor, Saline, Dexter, Chelsea, Milan, Ypsilanti Township, Clinton, Manchester, Whitmore Lake, or throughout Washtenaw County, MI.

• Free Home Evaluation

• Search the Ann Arbor Area MLS.

• Google Profile

• Market Reports in Real Time Updated Weekly

• Profit from Technology for Realtors and Lenders

This is a great video on Breast Cancer Awareness.

Take a few minutes and enjoy the real employees dance the Pink Glove Dance.

Did they think it would go viral?

Probably not...but it has.

Missy Caulk & Team can be reached at 734-216-2822 or email: Missy@MissyCaulk.com

Our TEAM of 6 buyer associates are available to help you relocate to Ann Arbor, Saline, Dexter, Chelsea, Milan, Ypsilanti Township, Clinton, Manchester, Whitmore Lake, or throughout Washtenaw County, MI.

• Free Home Evaluation

• Search the Ann Arbor Area MLS.

• Google Profile

• Market Reports in Real Time Updated Weekly

• Profit from Technology for Realtors and Lenders