Taken at Queens Park
Friday, December 23, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Article: Google+ Tips & Tricks: 10 More Ways to Make the Most of Your Account
Here at Mashable, we’ve been hard at work digging into Google’s new social network. All that searching has turned up even more useful shortcuts and tips.
Below we bring you 10 more ways to help you get the most out of your Google+ account.
SEE ALSO: Google+ Tips & Tricks: 10 Hints for New UsersTake a look through the gallery and share in the comments any suggestions you have for improving the G+ experience.
Image 1 of 11
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Article: More falling behind on home repayments
More falling behind on home repayments
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/more-falling-behind-on-home-repayments-20110526-1f6a1.html
More falling behind on home repayments
Clancy Yeates
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Saturday, July 2, 2011
Project Rebellion: REA’s Problems Continue with ACCC Investigation Underway
Business2
In a followup article to the Front Page Project Rebellion article, Ben Hurley from the Australian Financial Review has published a new story on an ongoing investigation by the ACCC into the activities of RealEstate.com.au and to a lesser extent Domain.com.au.
Questions directed at some of Australia’s leading real estate groups have seemed to focus on excessive price rises (see 1,2, 3 and 4) of realestate.com.au and the effectiveness of competition in the real estate online classified space.
Simon Baker, the ex CEO and substantial shareholder in REA has made some interesting comments on this blog recently regarding realestate.com.au prices :
If the franchise groups were serious about competing with realestate.com.au or at least providing a competitive offering, wouldnt they first start internally and attempt to organise group buying of REA subscriptions for their franchisees?
Imagine if all Ray White or LJ Hooker offices got together and negotiated as one for their REA subscriptions (and additional products). I think they would get a better price.
and
the most likely innovation will be suburb based pricing where there is significant differentiation between suburbs in the price paid.
and the most suprising comment from Simon was his take on add on products
The more interesting question is why do people have to buy the premium products? Do they really add value?
Does anybody else find that a little strange?
With all state Real Estate Institutes and the REIA meeting in Perth during the week strategies were again discussed to create a national industry run portal. David Airey commented on this blog prior to the meeting :
“Sadly the REIA ailed to gain national support from most state institutes to launch or run a national industry owned portal. That’s a sad indictment of the politics that used to exist and allowed the commercial sites to grow around our industry at our expense.”
and
“I’m on the record on many occasions criticising REI’s for this intransigence and for not listening to members.”
But the current momentum in the industry may have changed some minds as all indications are that this roadblock may finally be pulled down and our REI’s finally taking a role that many members thought they would never see and that is the operation of a national industry controlled portal. But taking on the might of REA would not be easy and one of the strategies being discussed is using the REI’s to feed to the commercial portals with delay of say 3 or 7 days. This would allow REI portals at a state and national level to promote something like “Find it first on xyz.com.au”.
As this plays out behind closed the campaign to withhold sold data from realestate.com.au is gaining some serious momentum and reports from small and large national real estate groups and portal pushers continue to roll in.
One side effect of withholding sold data from the likes of REA is that data companies like RPData who has paid substantially for this information feed from REA. RPData and other similar companies provide essential data services back to agents but also provide market analysis and review consumed by the nations media. With a strong national portal in place it’s expected that RPData will move to establish arrangements direct with the institutes bypassing REA entirely.
Another thing Ben Hurley has reported on today is the presents and gifts that Realestate.com.au is showering on their biggest spending clients. With the real estate market slowdown agents have looked to reduce discretionary spending. REA have used things like dinner at high end restaurants, State of Origin games, Business Class flights and even brand new iPads to secure the relationship. I personally have heard of a sales team being flown interstate to watch the AFL when discussions of reducing their yearly spend was raised.
Realestate.com.au has over 10,000 real estate agents throughout Australia and whilst many agents spend around $1,000 a month there are offices who spend 10, 20 and even 30 times that amount which is primarily funded by Vendor Paid Advertising (VPA). Realestate.com.au’s campaign to increase the share of wallet has been right around the country but it has been particularly successful in Melbourne where they have less competition from Domain and high dollar auction campaigns are popular . As an example the Premier Property option offered by realestate.com.au can cost an owner well over $2,000 per month.
Many in the industry showed increasing concern towards REA’s motives when a video surfaced showing their intention to market direct to buyers and sellers. Check out the video yourself, particularly from 9 min 30sec of this video.
In response Greg Ellis issued a written response which seemed to contradict itself from paragraph to paragraph. Why his response was not circulated widely by email is unknown but it might have something to do with the fact its easier to watch the video by clicking on the link if it was sent by email. I doubt to many would have typed in that long url.
In the letter he claimed that it was incorrectly reported that he wanted to cut agents out of the loop but then went on to state:
The development of site functionality that allows prospective buyers and sellers to access or claim property information that can be accessed by agents so they can cost effectively identify a new pool of leads.
I am sure I am not the only one that reads this sans spin to be that they are going to escalate their use of agents sold data, listing data and valuer general data to provide additional products to buyers and sellers direct and then sell those leads to agents…. as “cost effectively ” as realestate.com.au can do of course!
In an interesting side note REA reps have now started to sit down with salespeople and sellers in their homes to pitch $2000 a month Premier Property and other options in the marketplace. This appears to be very similar to the Redfin Portal in the US who have a team of salespeople on the ground in capital cities. The primary difference is that Redfin salespeople also present property and take a cut in the commission, something REA have repeatedly claimed they will not do.
REA’s dealings with the ACCC lately has not been good and has seen the scrapping of the Private Listing Policy which finally allows private sellers easy access to list on realestate.com.au.
The drought of sold data would certainly have some sort of effect on future revenue streams and to a certain extent current products but a successful ACCC action and a industry controlled competitor together would provide bad news for Australia’s largest and most successful real estate portal.
It’s going to be a very interesting few months as this all plays out but if it was bad news for REA it’s terrible timing for newcomer Onthehouse. A strong industry portal is not going to be good news for them. Their original investor document and subsequent prospectus highlighted the monetisation of client agents data.
The underwriter (and partial owner) took it a step further in their report when they stated :
“Low integration risk, with ongoing data feeds. PortPlus and Console databases are ready to be “plugged in” into OTH’s database. In addition, both businesses do not sell their software – they license it to each customer on a rolling basis. As such, they retain ownership and control over the software and its intellectual property. With the appropriate terms and conditions in place with clients, each business is licensed to access and upload the content that is captured by the software”
Customers of Portplus and Console are already questioning when the terms and conditions are going to change and just where their data is going to end up. I expect their competition will start to raise the issue and use this against them when pitching for business. Even though the float was over subscribed, in their first month of trading the shares dropped to as low as 60c which must be a huge concern for the original operators of Portplus and Console who are restricted in selling many of their shares for quite some time.
Certainly, the “Noise” is getting louder by the day! Join in and tell us what you think about the latest developments.
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Friday, July 1, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Article: Housing remains in the too hard basket at budget time
Housing remains in the too hard basket at budget time
http://blog.rpdata.com/2011/05/housing-remains-in-the-too-hard-basket-at-budget-time/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RPDataResearchBlog+%28RP+Data+Research+Blog%29
Once again, some of the key issues affecting virtually every Australian have not been addressed in the Federal Budget. Housing supply, and associated with that, housing affordability has again flown under the budget radar. Is it simply that politicians don’t know how to deal with the issues of land undersupply or is that they don’t have the ability?
The housing market is broadly addressed in Budget Paper 1 on page 2.20:
Dwelling investment
Households also remain cautious with respect to their dwelling investment decisions, with tighter credit conditions further weighing on activity in this sector. In the short term, forward indicators are pointing to continued weakness, with housing finance for new dwellings and dwelling approvals falling in recent months. In the medium term, demand for housing is expected to be supported by low unemployment, solid growth in household incomes and past strength in population growth. However, ongoing supply constraints associated with planning and approval processes and land release restrictions are expected to continue to weigh on dwelling investment growth.
So, it’s clear they acknowledge the problem but there is little action.
The key points relating to the property market in the budget were:
- Migration set for an upswing – new target is 185,000, up from 168,700 the year before
- Mostly focused on regional areas where workers are desperately required
- Higher population growth means higher demand for housing – the flip side is that the Government continues to ignore the fact that as a country we are not building enough homes to accommodate current rates of population growth, nor are we delivering these homes at affordable price points and with sufficient local infrastructure and amenities.
- $6 billion allocated to a regional infrastructure fund – most of this will be directed towards projects in Queensland and Western Australia to support the resources sector
- The ‘Housing and Community Amenities’ provision in the budget has been cut by $1.1b reflecting the conclusion of the housing initiatives introduced as part of the Government’s response to the global financial crisis.. This is primarily related to a reduction in social housing initiatives that were part of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Article: Future of the office is up in the air as pace of change speeds up
Future of the office is up in the air as pace of change speeds up
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/future-of-the-office-is-up-in-the-air-as-pace-of-change-speeds-up-20110506-1ebwq.html
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Saturday, May 7, 2011
Article: Real estate's advertising methods on display
Real estate's advertising methods on display
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/real-estates-advertising-methods-on-display-20110505-1e9d7.html
There was something rather peculiar about the big display advertisements in this morning’s newspaper for the new Penfolds releases: they were priceless.
“Nobody beats Dan Murphy’s”, trumpeted Woolworths over the usual mulberry prose with espresso highlights used to describe Penfolds’ “icon” wines. A couple of pages over and “We beat everyone’s liquor prices” promised 1st Choice Liquor Superstore (aka Coles, aka Wesfarmers) amid masses of dark fruit and a jolt of spine tingling tannin.
But nowhere on those four big pages of display advertising was the price for the stylish 2007 St Henri, the more robust 2008 RWT nor the immensely concentrated Bin 707. Funny that. Could Australia’s dominant retailers be going to the opposite extreme of the dreaded price signalling by not pricing at all?
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It is no doubt entirely coincidental that the two big players should both decide not to advertise the price each promises to beat on the major wine release event of the year. Purely coincidental.
Worse though than the unadvertised price is the advertised price that isn’t – a practice rife and apparently unchallenged in real estate.
“Above $700,000” means “$750,000 will be considered”. “More than $500,000” means “we’re running an unofficial auction with a reserve of $540,000”.
In my opinion, it’s simply misleading, a way of suckering in would-be buyers, leading them into a price range they otherwise wouldn’t consider, hoping to catch their emotions and, in a vendor’s perfect outcome, running an auction under the guise of private treaty.
It effectively gives the real estate agent the best of both the auction and private treaty worlds – an illusion of price certainty to attract buyers, plus the potential for competitive bidding.
While the real estate databases keep tabs on the level of discounting from the advertised price for private treaty sales, the ramping of prices goes unmeasured and unchallenged.
Consider visiting a supermarket where milk is priced at “above $1” and arriving at the cash register to find the price is actually $1.25. Consumers wouldn’t wear it and the ACCC would perhaps lumber into action. But for the biggest purchase of most people’s lives, it’s apparently acceptable.
It took years of complaints to get a little action over agents overestimating to vendors and underestimating to buyers in official auctions, but the more blatantly dodgy advertising of private treaty properties remains unchallenged. It wastes home seekers’ time in inspecting properties that are out of their price range and makes the market more opaque when transparency is the ideal.
Or maybe real estate should be advertised like the apparently priceless 2008 RWT shiraz: “Intensely aromatic with blackberry/elderberry/praline aromas and roasted chestnut notes. The palate is rich, smooth and compact with generous blackberry/dark chocolate/liquorice flavours, plentiful savoury tannins and vanilla/toasted oak notes. It finishes chalky firm, long and minerally.”
No, you can’t make that sort of stuff up - but if you can fit all that in a 750 ml bottle, imagine what you could do with an entire house on a quarter acre.
Michael Pascoe is a BusinessDay contributing editor known to imbibe reds, cheeky or otherwise.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Friday, May 6, 2011
Article: Gen Y More Likely To ‘Bet the House’ to Fund Business Venture
Gen Y More Likely To ‘Bet the House’ to Fund Business Venture
http://blog.aussie.com.au/geny-business-venture/
Monday, May 2, 2011
Article: Checks and Balances in Ranking Signals
Checks and Balances in Ranking Signals
http://searchenginewatch.com/3642101?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sew+%28Search+Engine+Watch%29
Google continues to introduce new sources of social signals at a rapid rate. The newest signal is the +1 button, a signal that some are calling their answer to Facebook.
Well, maybe, but I think there is much more to it than that. This is also Google’s latest move to reshape their ranking algorithms.
If we go back to the dawn of the modern search engine era, Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s thesis became the basis of the first successful commercial search engine based on citation analysis. The form of the citation worked beautifully, it was links.
The system was brilliant, because people only linked to stuff that they really liked. After all, a link might take traffic away from my site, so why would I link to something unless I thought it was good for my visitors, and that it would then reflect well on me?
As we all know the great spam attack followed, and an ongoing battle between Google and the spammers has followed. Google gradually made some progress, with most of the major firms who sell links exiting that business.
However, in the process, the original value of those citations lost some of its luster. Links no longer have the same degree of value as a citation source that they used to. They still are a valuable data point, but what was needed was a system of checks and balances.
The search for these has been ongoing for quite some time. By now Google has assembled an impressive list of alternative signals:
This is not to mention that they can monitor user behavior on the search results themselves. For example, if someone clicks on a search result and spends only 3 seconds there before bouncing back and clicking on a different result, that isn’t good. To this impressive array of signals, we now add the +1 feature.
The fascinating thing about all this is that it provides a marvelous system of checks and balances.
Spammers can continue to try and game the link side of the equation. They can find out how to buy links that Google can’t identify. They can build sites that use shady link building practices, and operate under Google’s radar.
But, it will be to no avail if your social signals don’t compare well with that of your competition.
Or, the spammer can choose to game one or more sets of social signals by one means or another. They can hire a bunch of people on Mechanical Turk to go spend an hour on their site and view 25 pages, make sure that they have the Google Toolbar installed, and make sure that they have Google Analytics on the site, right?
But what if the link data isn’t there to support that?
Gaming all the signals that we can identify may not even be enough, even if a spammer could afford it. After all, what are the signals that we can’t put our fingers on that Google has access to?
The cost of cheating just keeps going up and up, and figuring out how to do it gets harder and harder. The industry has speculated for years what Google would do to supplant or supplement links as a ranking signal. Now a clear picture is emerging.
A wide ranging network of social behavior signals will be a big player in the equation. These signals won’t supplant links entirely. Links will remain a huge factor, but there will also be a clear system of checks and balances.
The Google Panda update was the first major step towards putting these signals into action, and Google clearly likes the outcome of that effort. Panda is the first step in reshaping the way ranking algorithms work at Google. And, it is certainly only a first step.
Links won’t become a non-factor or a small factor. They are here to stay. Citation analysis, in a sense, is alive and well, it just comes in many different forms now.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Article: How Fast-Growing Companies Use Social-Media Marketing
How Fast-Growing Companies Use Social-Media Marketing
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219554?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+entrepreneur%2Flatest+%28Entrepreneur+Update%29
Between conversing with customers and connecting far-flung employees and operations, social media has become a prized resource for small businesses. And many business owners now say their efforts are paying off.
Four in 10 women-led business owners attributed an increase in revenue to their social media efforts, with 10 percent reporting a “significant” revenue jump, according to a survey conducted by Women Presidents’ Organization.
The data is based on the responses of 259 women-led companies that submitted applications for the annual Top 50 Fastest-Growing Women-Led Companies ranking. The list was released this week by WPO, an advisory group for multimillion-dollar women-owned businesses.
And while 40 percent of respondents said they haven’t seen sales improve from social media, 31 percent of them remained “hopeful,” as they cited other benefits such as building credibility or bolstering recruitment efforts. Just 16 percent reported no use of social media.
But for those who have achieved bottom-line success in part by socializing their companies, what’s their secret? Consider the social-media strategies of these three fast-growing from the WPO ranking.
BrightStar Franchising
Shelly Sun is the co-founder and CEO of BrightStar Franchising, a Gurnee, Ill.,-based homecare service.
Shelly Sun, co-founder of BrightStar Franchising [ranked No. 1], says there’s no question her social media marketing is paying dividends.
Not only has BrightStar’s Web traffic nearly doubled to total 55,000 unique monthly visitors, compared with 33,000 just a year ago, annual sales also surged 60 percent to $99.6 million in 2010, compared with the previous year. She expects the climb will continue in 2011 with projected annual sales of $150 million.
What’s BrightStar’s secret? Never a big dabbler, Sun who is also chief executive of the Gurnee, Ill.,-based homecare service, hired a dedicated staffer in 2008 to manage the company’s social media efforts as well its online reputation.
Today, BrightStar employees blog about the industry as well as post practical tips and advice on a range of topics from a new-babysitter checklist to hiring a homecare aid. Staffers also post links to relevant health and aging news stories on BrightStar’s Facebook page, and they’ll upload the occasional marketing video or event footage onto YouTube.
Sun’s advice: Cultivate in-bound links. By serving as an information resource for caregivers and people who need them, she’s been able to attract more than 72,000 in-bound links — links to her site from other sites — up from 600 a year ago. She says posting in-bound links to the site from online press releases and having nearly 200 franchisees all undertaking their own social media marketing helps.
“Everything we do with social media is trying to direct people to our site,” says Sun.
Rebecca Minkoff
imgimgimgimg![New York-based accessories and apparel designer Rebecca Minkoff.]()
Article: (Try to) Map Your House with MagicPlan [Apps]
(Try to) Map Your House with MagicPlan [Apps]
http://gizmodo.com/?_escaped_fragment_=5794954/try-to-map-your-house-with-magicplan
Does it work? Sort of. The interface is a little wonky, and lining up the wall-measuring reticles with your camera is tricky. I managed to create a fairly accurate rendering of my kitchen, but my living room came out looking like it’d been sucked through a black hole. Still, the app is free, and allows you to (potentially) map out dozens of rooms in a multi-floored home, making things easier should you ever want to sell or renovate the place. One caveat: a creepy message about “anonymous data collection” pops up when you first start the app. With no explanation. Hm. [iTunes]
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Friday, April 29, 2011
Article: HOW TO: Start Marketing on Foursquare
HOW TO: Start Marketing on Foursquare
http://mashable.com/2011/04/27/how-to-foursquare/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29
![]( "foursquare mayor")
There are more than 8 million users on Foursquare — up from just 1 million a year ago. This explosive growth means one thing — you might want to get your business on Foursquare. After all, Radio Shack reported that the average Foursquare user spends 3.5 times more at its retail shops than the average customer.
The most recent iteration of the location-based app, Foursquare 3.0, expanded the features and made it much easier for businesses to jump on the bandwagon and start marketing. Best of all, it’s free. Foursquare is winning the location-based app game because it has the biggest user base [aside from Facebook Places] and it pleases both parties — customers want to be recognized, and businesses want to know who their biggest fans are. Mashable spoke with Eric Friedman, Foursquare’s director of business development, about how businesses can get started on Foursquare and the various marketing options they have available to them.
“Foursquare works well when a moment of commerce happens,” says Friedman. And commerce is exactly what business owners are looking for. Plus, as smartphones penetrate the U.S market (currently, about a third of U.S. consumers have a smartphone), there will be even more Foursquare users.
“We’re on every single platform that’s out there, so there’s never been a better time for businesses to start using Foursquare,” Friedman says. “There’s no cost, it’s easy and it works.”
Want to get started? Below, Friedman walks Mashable through all of the steps.
Brands With Brick-and-Mortar Locations
“[Small businesses] have the same resources available to them as a super large QSR, an Italian restaurant or a Starbucks, and that’s a really powerful tool,” says Friedman. He’s referring to the Foursquare for Business Merchant Platform, which creates an even playing field for restaurants, retail stores, museums, mom-and-pop shops and other businesses. The owners can claim venues on Foursquare, establish specials and analyze data on Foursquare’s dashboard. Here’s how to do it.
Claim Your Venue
imgimgimgimgArticle: Facebook Fan Page Best Practices with Mari Smith [@InboundNow #18]
Facebook Fan Page Best Practices with Mari Smith [@InboundNow #18]
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/12731/Facebook-Fan-Page-Best-Practices-with-Mari-Smith-InboundNow-18.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HubSpot+%28HubSpot%29
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Article: New breed of entrepreneurs turn profits to social ends
New breed of entrepreneurs turn profits to social ends
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/new-breed-of-entrepreneurs-turn-profits-to-social-ends-20110423-1ds1r.html
Identified a gap … Sebastian Robertson is funding a not-for-profit organisation. Photo: James Brickwood.
BUSINESS schools took a long hard look at themselves after the global financial crisis. Were they responsible for churning out ready-made ”millionaires by 30” who caused the mess?
If one of the new subjects they are offering is anything to go by, then the answer is yes.
Social entrepreneurship - the term used for conventional business models that deliver social or environmental returns - has been added to business schools across the US, Britain and, now, Australia.
Cheryl Kernot, a former politician turned associate professor at the centre for social change at the University of NSW, is at the forefront of social entrepreneurship in Australia.
”Young people have been looking at how to harness a business with a social purpose, not just to generate their own wealth,” she said.
”[This is] a call to action to address the systemic failures of our traditional institutions.”
There will always be a place for charity, she says, but social entrepreneurs use business principles to make profit and reinvest it in a social purpose.
The School of Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) was established in Britain in 1997. Benny Callaghan, the Australian chief executive of its schools in Sydney and Melbourne, said he was witnessing a shift among the young generation towards giving back to the community.
”The younger generation are … deciding their life and career is about more than making money,” Mr Callaghan said. ”[They] want the work they are doing to have an impact on other peoples’ lives.”
SSE student Sebastian Robertson, 25, left a lucrative finance job to start his own not-for-profit business. He created Batyr to educate students about the ”white elephants” of the school playground, such as mental health, sexual issues, anxiety and depression.
”We charge schools for the delivery of the talks,” he said. ”But for the benefit we think the students will get, even if it only connects with one student … then we believe it’s money well spent.”
Timothy Devinney, of the University of Technology, Sydney, is less convinced by the emergence of social entrepreneurs.
”I would say the world is more open to social entrepreneurship but this in itself is nothing new. Our society is no more or less moral than it was 50 years ago.”
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Article: Developers dread late fibre arrival
Developers dread late fibre arrival
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/developers-dread-late-fibre-arrival-20110406-1d4fu.html
DEVELOPERS are complaining that new housing projects are at risk of delay because of the mammoth task of connecting large estates to the national broadband network.
The government has made the NBN Co responsible for connecting all new buildings with more than 100 units and the company aims to appoint contractors by next month.
However, the president of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, Peter Sherrie, said some developers feared they would not have fibre connections on time because of the complexity of connecting new buildings at short notice.
The NBN Co aims to appoint contractors to connect new developments by the end of the month but Mr Sherrie said there was ”a lot of angst” in the industry that the company would be snowed under by developers seeking fibre connections.
”For people who are finishing a project [before NBN Co can] deliver fibre to the premises, there may be some delay,” he said. ”That’s obviously causing us some concern.”
NBN Co’s executive general manager for new development, Archie Wilson, conceded there was confusion among developers but said those facing potential delays had failed to follow the proper process.
He said developers were meant to sign contracts with NBN Co to arrange fibre connections three months before the fibre was needed. However, some were failing to do this, prompting some ”challenging conversations” with the industry.
”There’s a been a change to the industry and not everyone’s read the volumes of communication that we’ve put out there … But we’re pragmatic about it, our job is to roll out fibre and that’s what we’ll do, and we’ll work with the developers to make sure that we get it in at the time they need it.”
The $36 billion network’s roll-out has sparked significant changes for developers because they are now required to install pits and pipes, which they have not previously done. For the NBN Co and its contractors, connecting developments in isolated areas is also a significant challenge.
Mr Wilson said the earliest requests for connection from developers were for late June, and these had been brought to the front of the queue.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Article: Rents on the rise as buyers dry up
Rents on the rise as buyers dry up
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/06/3184107.htm
Rents on the rise as buyers dry up
By finance reporter Lexi Metherell
Updated April 6, 2011 17:43:00
There are signs rents are starting to pick up again, with potential first homebuyers choosing to lease houses rather than buy.
A report by RP Data shows, after sluggish growth in recent months, national rental rates were 1.4 per cent higher in the March quarter than the same quarter a year earlier.
A senior research analyst at RP Data, Cameron Kusher, says rents are likely to continue to rise because higher interest rates, and a cautious attitude among first homebuyers, mean more people are staying in the rental market.
“The first homebuyers aren’t active so, if they’re not buying their own home, they’re either: a) living with their own parents; or b) they’re out there in rental market,” he explained.
“Although migration’s slowing, we’ve still got a growing population … so all the factors are suggesting to us that rental growth during 2011 will be quite strong.”
Mr Kusher says a fall in new home approvals and housing finance indicates that this trend will continue for some time.
“People are just very conservative out there at the moment, first homebuyers are pretty much a non-event in the market at the moment, and that’s going to create more demand for those rental properties, particularly now that we’re seeing building approvals and dwelling commencements starting to taper off as well,” he said.
The report shows the average national rent was around $360 a week in the March quarter.
Capital city house rents were about $20 a week more expensive than the national average.
However, Western Australia’s Pilbara region has the most expensive average weekly house rent at $1,650, while Tasmania has the cheapest at $235 a week.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Monday, April 25, 2011
Article: Facebook-Infused Job Search Site Finds Listings From Your Social Graph
Facebook-Infused Job Search Site Finds Listings From Your Social Graph
http://mashable.com/2011/04/05/in-the-door/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29
How many of your Facebook friends work for companies that are hiring? Chances are you don’t know, but new job search startup In The Door launches Tuesday and plugs into Facebook to surface that information.
In The Door’s premise is simple: Let job seekers use their social graph to find open positions where they might have an inside edge. You need only log in with Facebook and In The Door will find and sort job listings at the companies where your Facebook friends work.
CEO and founder Liz Carlson says she wanted to create the site after she learned that a friend landed a job at Google by way of a recommendation from a mutual friend. Her online job applications, meanwhile, were being automatically rejected by computer algorithms and never reached the desk of a hiring manager or recruiter.
“I wanted to figure out how to digitize the process,” she says of being inspired by her friend’s success with an inside recommendation. “Instead of just seeing a long list of unqualified jobs, why don’t we start by showing companies where you have an inside connection?” she thought.
Carlson took her idea to the Founder Institute, where she participated in the summer 2010 program. Tuesday, she’s ready to launch the bootstrapped Facebook-infused job search site and solicit feedback from users.
The site, in its present state, lets you view all the companies hiring in your network, explore by city and search all the surfaced job listings. The homepage shows friends’ companies that are hiring, with a count of friends employed by the company and jobs available listed next to each company. You can then view a company’s page to check out all job openings and see which of your friends work at the company in the question.
For now, In The Door merely aggregates job listings from third-party job sites such as Indeed. It also leaves the friend-to-friend, “I need a favor…” conversation piece to Facebook. Later, these two pieces will become more tightly integrated into the site experience so that companies can accept applications and recommendations through the site.
Friends-of-friends job search is also in the works. “Users will be able to explore second degree connections,” says Carlson.
At launch, In The Door does a solid job at surfacing positions you might have a better chance landing because you have a friend on the inside.
The startup is giving away 100 invitations to companies who want to personalize their company page and link to their career site.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Article: Push to control Nerang deer threat
Push to control Nerang deer threat
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2011/04/07/306045_gold-coast-news.html
NERANG’S deer problem needs to be controlled now before it becomes an even bigger problem, an urban ecologist warns.
Griffith University’s Darryl Jones specialises in wildlife management in urban areas and said much of the deer population problems in southeast Queensland were caused by the collapse of the velvet and deer meat market.
”Hobby deer farmers who weren’t making money any more simply opened the gate and let the deer go,” he said.
”Deer are turning up in places they should not be and are doing large amounts of damage to the environment.”
Mr Jones said although it was easy to say ”something needs to be done” it was not as simple as culling deer in residential areas.”You need a long-term perspective and co-operation between landowners and authorities to make something work,” he said.
One way to curb the deer population in Nerang, he said, could be to set up a paddock with grain or something that would attract the deer each night.
”It could take a couple of weeks for the deer to get used to walking through the gate and eating there each night, but once that happens you can go out one night and shut the gate,” he said. ”The deer can then either be humanely killed for meat or relocated somewhere out of the area.”
Without natural predators and the availability of young trees and plants in residential areas, Prof Jones said the deer could grow to larger than normal sizes.
A council spokeswoman said Gold Coast City Council had no jurisdiction to manage declared pests on State Government or privately owned land.
”Several years ago the council requested permission from the State Government to reduce the feral deer numbers on its behalf this request was subsequently denied,” she said.
”A community-led approach to catch and relocate the deer on private property needs the support of all residents in the street.”
The Department of Environment and Resource Management did not respond to Sun inquiries before going to print.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Article: Brisbane outfit in for SBW and Cooper
Brisbane outfit in for SBW and Cooper
http://www.espnscrum.com/super-rugby-2011/rugby/story/138516.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
The group behind a proposed Brisbane-based NRL franchise is hoping to secure the services of union stars Sonny Bill Williams and Quade Cooper for their new enterprise.
The Brisbane outfit’s application is expected to be confirmed later this year, with a view to actually competing in the NRL in 2013. And, according to Bill Rae, one of the delegates involved in the bid, contact has already been made with Khoder Nasser, who manages both New Zealand centre Williams and Wallabies fly-half Cooper.
“We don’t know whether we’re in or not, but we have approached Quade and Sonny,” he told the Sunday Telegraph. “We want Quade and Sonny Bill to get their World Cup campaigns out of the way first, but once that is done we will up the ante for them.
“We’ve started talks with these guys and we want them on board. We believe we can offer them a great opportunity to potentially be part of history and obviously they would be the perfect recruits for us.
“We’re being realistic about this. At the moment we don’t have an NRL licence and the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) will be hard to beat when it comes down to dollars. Because we don’t have a history, we need some special talent to build the club from scratch and we’d love to see Quade and Sonny on our wall as the originals.”
Williams, of course, made his name in rugby league and Nasser admitted that a return to the 13-man code at some point in the future is a distinct possibility for one of the most coveted athletes in professional sport.
“I can confirm that I have had an approach from the Brisbane bid team,” he said. “It’s flattering that these people know who the cream of the crop are and want to bring the best of the best to their franchise. Of course (a return to league) is something Sonny will consider, he started his career playing rugby league.
“Quade has a phenomenal passing, running and kicking game and this is a guy who has got one metre to play with. It’s been proven by many athletes, including Sonny, that if you are great in rugby league you can be successful in rugby and vice-versa.”
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Article: Rental market tight in wake of floods
Rental market tight in wake of floods
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/rental-market-tight-in-wake-of-brisbane-floods/story-e6frg9gx-1226042446339
JANUARY’S floods in Brisbane and Ipswich had only a short-term effect on the southeast Queensland rental market, but the lack of new housing coming on to the market is leading to tighter competition for existing properties.
Figures issued by the Real Estate Institute of Queensland yesterday show that the vacancy rate for Brisbane’s rental market was 1.8 per cent for the six months to the end of last month, a big drop from the 2.6 per cent recorded in the six months to the end of last September.
While the January floods affected the prestige Brisbane riverfront property market, they also hit the rental markets in less affluent areas, some not directly on the Brisbane River.
Residential Tenancy Authority figures show that demand for three- and four-bedroom houses increased after the floods, while the two-bedroom unit rental market remained relatively stable.
But in general, agents are now reporting that the rental market has begun to return to normal conditions.
REIQ chairman Pamela Bennett said the impact of the floods on the rental market was mainly confined to flood-affected areas.
“With reduced rental accommodation in their immediate area, many tenants and home owners displaced by the floods had to look to other suburbs for accommodation in January and February,” Ms Bennett said.
But REIQ agents in unaffected suburbs reported that this did not result in any significant increase in rental demand in their local areas.
But the outlook in the Brisbane rental market is tempered by the overall slowdown in the housing industry throughout Queensland, particularly the southeast corner.
The biggest shortages of rental housing were in the areas immediately around Brisbane, with significant drops in vacancy rates in the Caboolture and Pine Rivers areas.
Most of the regional cities were steady, but there were substantial drops in vacancy rates in Cairns, Townsville and Rockhampton.
Ms Bennett said the rental market was starting to be affected by the subdued property market with few first-home buyers and investors leading to more demand and less supply in the rental market.
“This also occurred in 2008 when high interest rates deterred buyers, so it is not difficult to ascertain that the current economic conditions and the rapid nature of rate rises last year are having the same effect this year,” she said.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Article: New York Times Gets Its First Tumblr
New York Times Gets Its First Tumblr
http://mashable.com/2011/04/06/nytimes-tumblr/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29
The Gray Lady has just launched its first Tumblr account, but it’s not showcasing the newswriting and photojournalism content you might expect.
The new Times account — T on Tumblr — covers the domain of T Magazine, the style and culture magazine of The New York Times. The subject matter is a perfect fit for the arts- and community-focused mini-blogging platform.
The Washington Post recently took to Tumblr with a blog full of behind-the-scenes info and musings on the future of journalism. But The New York Times‘ first foray into the world of Tumblr is less news and more pure fashion.
In fact, we recently wrote about fashion brands flocking to Tumblr, and T on Tumblr makes sense for the same reasons: The content is highly visual, and the posts are potentially highly viral. Due to features such as one-click reblogging, Tumblr Fashion Director Rich Tong says, “There’s a huge capacity for fashion content to go viral on Tumblr.”
And visual, cultural content for the creative communities is exactly what Tumblr is aiming for these days.
T on Tumblr is replete with huge, magazine-quality photos of pretty people making funny faces. Captions are brief and contain links to the official T Magazine site. The blog also curates a “Posts We Like” section.
Horacio Silva, T’s online director, told The Cutline, “It’s a great way of bringing to the surface a lot of these great visuals that for any reason may have been overlooked.
“We take a very curatorial approach to the editorial decisions we make. I think that aspect lends itself perfectly to Tumblr.”
Check out T on Tumblr, and let us know in the comments what you think of the project. Is this approach more appropriate for Tumblr than the news-and-commentary tactic of the Washington Post?
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Article: Watercress the new wonder food
Watercress the new wonder food
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2011/04/20/309645_gold-coast-news.html
THE State Government thinks health-conscious Gold Coasters may soon be swapping lettuce for watercress. Mounting evidence shows watercress may combat certain types of cancer. Food scientists at the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation are determined to find the most nutritious methods of preparing and cooking the leaves.
The cancer fighting capability of watercress, a member of the brassica family, is due to the high levels of phytochemicals known as isothiocyanates (ITCs). These are the same disease fighting components found in broccoli and cabbage.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Article: Penthouse, rural shack cost the same
Penthouse, rural shack cost the same
http://www.news.com.au/money/property/mining-boom-pushes-average-rent-for-central-queensland-house-up-nine-times-more-than-brisbane/story-e6frfmd0-1226040921422
GIVEN the choice, where would you live?
A two-level, four-bedroom, three bathroom penthouse apartment overlooking the Brisbane skyline with a sweeping balcony and access to a sparkling rooftop pool?
Or would you live in four-bedroom, one bathroom, weatherboard house with a carport in central Queensland?
Well if you have around $1450 a week you can have either.
The Courier Mail reports today the mining industry has affected house prices in some towns to such a degree that it costs around nine times as much to live in the rural town of Dysart as it does to live in southwest Brisbane.
The high cost of housing and huge demand from mining workers has even seen instances of “hot-bedding”, which means sharing a room with someone on an alternative shift.
The cost is driving many companies into the controversial fly-in, fly-out schemes or putting workers in temporary camps, causing huge social problems in some towns.
Young people without mining jobs in towns like Moranbah are reportedly forced to live in caravans - often with five or six people together - because they cannot afford the $1200 a week rentals.
The Real Estate Institute of Queensland found Dysart had the state’s highest median rent of $1200 a week for a house, but this was collated over the average rents for all houses.
Current listings show a four-bedroom house in Dysart can fetch as much as $1800 a week in rent while the median rent for homes in suburban Forest Lake, in Brisbane’s south west, is $362 a week.
The REIQ said state-wide market conditions over the past 12 months resulted in better returns for investors because house prices had generally softened and rents remained stable.
“The natural disasters in Queensland … no doubt impacted buyer confidence, however February saw an increase in the number of dwellings financed across all buyer segments,” REIQ chairman Pamela Bennett said.
The union representing coalminers, the CFMEU, has campaigned heavily on the destruction of mining communities through fly-in, fly-out operations. Yesterday it described the rents as a disgrace.
CFMEU state secretary Jim Valery said it was not only miners affected because towns could not attract council workers, emergency workers or even bank staff because they could not afford rents.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Article: Aussies sought to buy US real estate
Aussies sought to buy US real estate
http://www.news.com.au/money/investors-sought-to-buy-us-real-estate/story-e6frfmci-1226040754283
AUSTRALIAN investors are being asked to pump millions of dollars into high-risk US houses, the same assets that triggered the global financial crisis.
In the first listed investment of its type, financial planner Dixon Advisory is seeking $80 million from mum-and-dad investors to purchase the heavily discounted homes.
House prices in the US have suffered a five-year slump and remain up to 60 per cent below their 2006 peak.
The collapse in US house values led to millions of people walking away from their homes, which under US law left the banks and other lenders with responsibility for their clients’ debts.
It was this avalanche of mortgage defaults that started the world-wide collapse of the wholesale financial system and triggered the global crisis.
According to Dixon Advisory, it plans to buy up homes in the New York metropolitan area, particularly family homes in Hudson County and New Jersey.
The pool of houses is expected to produce an annual return of more than 8 per cent, based on estimated rental income. However, the company has not detailed the forecast return it will pass through to investors or its fees.
Dixon Advisory’s directors include high-profile financial advisers Daryl Dixon and Max Walsh. The plan will be marketed to individual investors and self-managed superannuation funds.
“Valuations for US property in certain areas, with strong fundamentals such as the New York metropolitan area, have become very attractive,” Dixon managing director Alan Dixon said yesterday.
“At the same time, housing affordability measures in the US are at record highs and rents have been mostly stable throughout the period, resulting in very attractive yields to investors currently.
“This, coupled with the record high Australian dollar, provides a unique investment opportunity for investors to gain access to this highly attractive asset class.”
The property fund plans to issue units at $1.60 each, compared with a net asset value of $1.57, with a minimum subscription per person of $2000.
Dale Gilham, analyst at fund manager Wealth Within, said there were benefits and risks associated with the US housing market. The benefits include potential capital gains, if prices recover, and higher than normal rental income.
The risks include currency exchange and growth forecasts that assume the US economy is improving.
Mr Gilham said he was wary, as the investment “has not been tried and tested over years”.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Monday, April 18, 2011
Article: Using An Editorial Calendar For Your Blog
Using An Editorial Calendar For Your Blog
http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/blog-editorial-calendar.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SearchEnginePeople+%28Search+Engine+People%29
You already know that a blog is a trifecta win for your website:
- Fresh content on your blog is a big attraction for search engines
- A blog gives your target audience a reason to return to your website on a regular basis,
- A blog attracts new visitors looking for the info you have to offer
The key to keeping your blog fresh and relevant is to organize yourself in a way that will help you post valuable, useful, and fun content on a predicable schedule.
planning strategically
like
a publisherIf you are like me, when I established my blog I was loaded with ideas, overflowing with excitement and full of plans. The key is to harness this energy and get those ideas organized.
How do I do it and how do I help my clients do it? We set up an editorial calendar that provides a simple structure to guide content organization and creation for many months to come.
Publishers originally used editorial calendars as a guide for advertisers to build targeted ads around the planned content. Pleasing advertisers is probably not an issue for your blog, but planning strategically like a publisher makes a lot of sense.
First, the key to successful blogging is consistency – the New York Times doesn’t show up every now and again does it? Second, you can plan to present content in a variety of ways; writing, videos, and using images. Some people love videos, some bulleted lists, mix up your delivery to engage as many people as possible.
Here is a simple example, the subject of your blog is Facebook and you post once a week. A logical Editorial Calendar could be:
• Week 1: An editorial – “Is Facebook still a player?”
• Week 2: A tutorial – “How to build Welcome pages for businesses” (create a video)
• Week 3: News – Facebook has just launched a way to turn personal pages into business pages
• Week 4:Guest post – ask a trusted colleague to guest blog. It will remove the pressure from you to write something, and expose your audience to other people. (Also this could be a terrific opportunity for link exchanges, which is another SEO booster!)
My clients and I set aside a little time at the start of each quarter to layout the calendar. I suggest that you use Google Analytics to review your stats and examine which posts are drawing the biggest audience and which keywords are sending visitors your way. If you see that your Facebook video tutorials are popular, schedule more!
If you are working in WordPress it is also possible to write a series of articles and editorials to save and publish at a later date. This one minute video tutorial will walk you through the process. There is an excellent WordPress plugin that is simply called editorial calendar, and this is a super tutorial video which will walk you through the features and best ways to use the editorial calendar.
My advice, set aside some time to think through your message and the frequency you can commit to for the next several months. Lay out your plan and get with it.
Do you use an editorial calendar or do you have other tools and processes to keep your blogging going? Share them in the comments!
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Article: Managing Real Estate Talent
Managing Real Estate Talent
http://www.matthewferrara.com/blog/company/managing-real-estate-talent/
The classic real estate business model asks each person to do everything. Agents must master dozens of skills. Managers must know those, plus management ones. The results are polarized: spectacular success amidst widespread failures, even at the same companies. Maybe the solution is to fix an organizational design flaw whose time has come.
Consider the truism: 10% of the agents do about 90% of the business. What does that say about the large portion of the industry who generate few or no outcomes, but still show up to work? Similarly, different managers in branches of the same company produce different results. Some meet their recruiting goals, others miss those marks but hit their profit goals. All have access to the same systems, tools and training.
We could rationalize: different markets, consumers, motivation levels, etc. But suppose for a moment the problem isn’t people. What if it’s the way the people have been organized?
Consider two key social developments in the last two centuries (yes, look at history). Since the mid-19th century, Western society has increasingly valued specialists. General practitioners in medicine, science, education, industry have disappeared. College graduates emerge with specific degrees. A vast array of single-focus technical institutes has emerged: hair design, cooking, computer engineering and lab technicians. We even ask little children are asked what they want to be when they grow up. Bobby wants to become a fireman, Sally an astronaut.
Hardly any child aspires to become someone who does a little bit of everything at varying levels of competence every day.
Which leads us to the second development: hyper-specialized business missions. Few companies try to do a little bit of everything any more, a la Sears. At one time the Ed Sullivan Show featured a variety of talents. Today, there’s a magazine for every peculiar specialty: Running, Walking, Jogging. Success means focus, segmentation, execution, consistency.
Specialization allowed Ford to produce hundreds, not dozens, of cars per month. Specialist teams design different parts of the same computer, then collaborate on the final product. Industry newcomers displace veterans using specialization: By deploying a single model plane throughout its fleet, Southwest slashed costs, time and resources for parts, training, and maintenance. It tackled the problem of scheduling and absenteeism, making flight attendants and pilots interchangeable. Some legacy airlines cycle through bankruptcy still trying to overcome the disadvantages of dissimilar planes, parts and personnel.
Adam Smith, Taylor, Marcus Buckingham have taught and re-taught this lesson for centuries. Successful companies divide the work, train and equip specialists, leverage individual talents, and manage the process. The key technology is properly applied talent, not the adoption of robots or social media.
What if we apply this to the real estate industry?
Traditional operating procedure has focused on recruiting and equipping agents as generalists. Each person is trained to be a duplicate “basket of skills” capable of doing every part of the sale. Rather than consolidate independent cottage workers into a work-divided factory, the real estate industry has opted to replicate the generalist model, building additional cottages (branches) around town, hoping that more generalists would equal more sales.
Moreover, the generalist skill basket is huge. To be successful, agents must master agency representation, prospecting skills, market analysis, pricing strategies, advertising, e-commerce, legal compliance, finance, negotiation tactics, staging skills, transaction management, accounting and relationship management responsibilities. It’s hardly surprising that so few people can manage them all to break the $100,000 income level. And the basket continues to grow.
Some industry specialization exists: Relocation specialists are the most common. Pseudo-specialization is more common: agents focusing on certain property types. Yet this isn’t operational specialization, since they must still possess proficiency in the rest of the generalist basket items.
The case may be worse for managers, many of whom come from the agent ranks. Not only are they expected to demonstrate proficiency within many elements of the sales basket, but they must also master a management basket. Operations, technology, budgeting, recruiting, conflict management, training and strategic planning require other talents, tools and resources.
So what’s the solution?
Move the boxes around on the company org chart. Start assigning people to tasks according to their individual talents, not street addresses. Find that manager who is a talented recruiter and let them recruit all day long, with no other responsibilities, for any branch that needs additional talent. Eliminate recruiting for everyone else with no talent for it. But figure out what they are good at, instead. Can they coach? Let them coach agents in any branch. Is there a great bean-counter amongst them? Assign him to manage the budget for multiple offices. Just don’t ask him to conduct an office meeting or strategic planning session. You get the idea.
Stop thinking of management as a location-based activity and start thinking of it as a company-based allocation of talent. Deploy human resources by proficiency, not street address. One person can coach hundreds of people; manage dozens of budgets or recruit as many new agents as needed each year if you let them stick to it. The pilot doesn’t serve the drinks. The quarterback doesn’t block. The surgeon doesn’t treat a cold.
Reorganizing the org chart of the real estate company is critical to the future. It can release hidden talent in your existing group, and create the structural conditions to attract the next generation of team-oriented, specialist Gen Y’ers. That’s not a contradiction in terms, either. Talent-based organizations improve motivation and morale, too: People don’t hesitate to do things they like to do. Smart companies make it possible for them to maximize what they can do well, and stop asking them to do things they cannot master.
Global business has been taking advantage of the specialist movement in social education and organization for decades. There’s a great opportunity awaiting real estate companies who make the shift from churning generalists to designing specialists (in managers and agents) to deliver the next generation of real estate services in the future.
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Article: From kitchen to couch: pet chooks fly the coop
From kitchen to couch: pet chooks fly the coop | brisbanetimes.com.au
http://m.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/from-kitchen-to-couch-pet-chooks-fly-the-coop-20110415-1dh3e.html
They don’t shed fur and won’t scratch your couch, but they do love going for walks and can provide you with breakfast.
The humble chicken is now being considered an ideal inner-city pet who’s just as good at providing you with organic free-range eggs as snuggling up next to you to watch MasterChef.
Well, perhaps not MasterChef.
Chickens are social creatures who love human companionship, according to Ingrid Dimock.The Brisbane mother has seen her City Chicks business expand from a part-time job a few years ago to a successul franchise with branches in Sydney and another soon to open in Melbourne.
From her home in Anstead, on Brisbane’s western fringe, Ms Dimock sells chickens and coops, feed, egg incubators and chicken leashes and nappies. Yes, that’s chicken nappies. ‘‘People wanted to take them inside their house but chickens poo constantly,’’ she said. ‘‘So they can put a nappy on it and it can go inside as a treat, watch TV with the family.’’ The ‘nappy’ - a fabric pouch the chickens don’t seem to mind wearing once they’ve gotten used to it - has become so popular that Ms Dimock is now selling about ten each week through her online store. She also sells two or three chicken leashes, made from converted small dog leads. The leashes were developed on the request of a client who wanted to be able to take his chicken to his kids’ soccer games. ‘‘Your best ideas come from your clients,’’ Ms Dimock said. Families not quite ready to commit to being full-time fowl owners can rent out a few birds and a coop to see if they like it (and if it’s okay with their neighbours). The growing trend for pet chickens among city families is due to increasing demand for organic or free-range eggs, as well as a desire to get kids off Facebook and into the backyard, Ms Dimock said. ”People want to know where their food is coming from. They want their eggs to be free-range and we sell organic feed so they can have organic eggs as well,” she said. ”The other reason is they want to get the kids outdoors and getting their hands dirty.”
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
Article: What Happened to the Markets in March?
What Happened to the Markets in March?
http://www.raywhite.net/?p=4774
Our obsession with overall market direction continues. It is apparent that a new factor needs to be incorporated in any searching analysis – the impact of some fading values in a number of our markets. Not in all, and not nearly as dramatic as many commentators have broadcast.
Many in real estate expect that a “sellers” market is the natural order of things and get frightened when that cycle (inevitably) turns. Many buyers are now buying the desired asset that was previously beyond them.
So our total unconditional sales of $2.3 billion proved to us that a platform base is being established. Why? Evidence that buyers are beginning to relish their new found prominence in the property “feeding” cycle. Also encouraging is that buyers simply want a good deal and are not seeking to humiliate our sellers.
Again, there are many counter prevailing forces. Australia’s two biggest cities are powering on (predictions of Melbourne’s imminent reversal now seem panicky). New Zealand’s Auckland showing leadership.
The resource states (Qld and WA) are not yet enjoying an improved balance between buyer and seller. But this remains the theme we have focused upon for months – the big cities are showing the same resilience as the biggest US cities.
And buyers will continue to benefit from a renewal in competition between the Banks in home lending. Brokers are coming into their own in clarifying the differences in different mortgage products – the variety in offerings is perhaps the most comprehensive it has ever been. Stories of brokers being able to enhance the entire transaction to the benefit of their buying clients is constant.
Stability of interest rates (NZ actually lowered theirs) is good news.
A story from Indonesia is enlightening – their domestic market has rarely been so active and aggressive. And that is because their interest rates for borrowers have dropped to an “incredible low” ten percent! Proof that, at the end of the day, most things are relative.
What’s new at Ray White?
The Company’s just completed season of Award evenings was a continuing inspiration. Again and again, stories of commitment and skills’ development pervaded those taking the Award categories. More Awards for property management reflect the dramatically enhanced standing we now place on providing a dramatically elevated service to investment owners – who consistently own around 30% of all properties, although this percentage is under some pressure.
The key Group Awards will be presented at our Bali Conference in June.
A special purpose briefing on the property implications of the Christchurch market was recently held in Sydney. We often forget how much property is owned by expatriates. We were delighted with the response to our session. We will continue to conduct these special sessions as a service to people interested in their property assets.
An agreement has been concluded to open in Kuala Lumpur – the opening ceremony to coincide with our Bali Conference. We continue to believe we have a role to play in Asia.
In Victoria, we continue to challenge that unique Melbourne tradition – where all Auctions should be held “on site” – recent successes from our Melbourne businesses are showing how powerful and successful are “in rooms” auction events.
Ray White Invest’s WA Retail Centres are being expanded to exploit their long evident potential.
Our next issue will look deeply into the post natural disaster Queensland market.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Article: How real estate agents use social media
How real estate agents use social media
http://peterfletcher.com.au/2011/04/12/how-real-estate-agents-use-social-media/
On April 12, 2011, In Social media, by Peter Fletcher
An online survey, conducted by Postling, of more than 500 real estate professionals in the USA has found:
- 84% of real estate agents use social media.
- 79% use Facebook and 48% use Twitter.
- Most (55%) feel comfortable using social media, while 26% are only somewhat comfortable.
- Agents are missing opportunities by not using video for property marketing.
- 29% of internet searches result in a prospect contacting an agent.
- 45% of searches lead to a prospect walking through an open for inspection.
- Real estate agents are ahead of other industries in the use of Facebook but they’re behind in the use of Twitter and WordPress.
These stats demand agents rethink their web and video strategies.
![How real estate agents use social media [infographic]](http://localhost:14942/?src=http%3A%2F%2Fpeterfletcher.com.au%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F04%2FReal-Estate-Social-Media-Infographic-e1302614022233.jpg "How real estate agents use social media")
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Article: How Likeable is Your Company?
How Likeable is Your Company?
http://www.matthewferrara.com/rssfeed/how-likeable-is-your-company/
Over at the Harvard Business Review’s blog today, I found an interesting entry by Andrew McAfee titled, Do Your Younger Customers Even Like Your Company? that made me think of the parallel challenges facing the real estate industry.
Here is an excerpt:
I had an interesting conversation earlier this week with a very experienced consultant whose company works with many of the largest financial services providers in the world — the banks, funds, and insurance companies we’ve all heard of. He told me that a lot of them were noticing the same disturbing trend: their younger customers really didn’t like them.
Across a lot of these companies, there’s a dominant model for how to interact with customers around big-ticket events like buying life insurance, setting up a brokerage account, saving for college or retirement, and so on. The model involves initial recommendations from the company, often delivered in face-to-face meetings, sporadic follow-ups, and more frequent and routine transactions (making deposits, paying bills, etc.) that nowadays often happen online.
Now this sounds remarkably familiar, doesn’t it? McAfee goes on….
What’s so bad about this? In the eyes of digital native customers, a few things. The initial recommendations are seen as untrustworthy, since they come from someone who’s likely to be more interested in maximizing personal or corporate income rather than customer well-being. The meetings and phone calls around these recs are intrusive and inconvenient, and the documents impenetrable. And the associated websites are clunky; it’s harder than it needs to be to execute processes and transactions, find basic information, and get questions answered. In short, the human interactions seem to date from the Eisenhower administration, and the online ones from 1996.
McAfee goes on to say that customers work with these companies even though they don’t like to, because the companies control access to the desired product or service. But he challenges us to consider if that’s the best business model: control access, or better experience. Plus, he notes, the digital viewpoint is spreading, to all generations hopping on the Facebook-iPad-smartphone information management nexus,which will create an opportunity for companies who move swiftly to adopt their customers’ viewpoint to mop up from companies that do not part from their legacy systems, including intransigent employees, fast enough.
For me, the most interesting part of the piece isn’t the usual “stress” upon technology itself, often interpreted as the “thing” modern customers want, but the trust and likeability factor between customers and these companies. The insight is that the purpose of innovation isn’t just to reduce paperwork or speed up the transaction, but to convey to the consumer that you have their best interests at heart, that you speak their language, and that you wish to earn their trust by being transparent. Most of all, McAfee notes that the human interactions need to progress from the ways things were done back in “Eisenhower’s days” alongside the improvements in technology process, which we often put more resources into updating or adopting.
We’ve been challenging our clients to think about the process, not just the tools, for years. For example, no amount of tweeting is going to get Gen X consumers to attend an open house if you’re still scheduling them for Sundays (as in the 1960s). It’s not that the customer doesn’t know about your open houses; it’s that they fall on an inconvenient day of the week – one that hasn’t been convenient for many people since the days of Laverne and Shirley.
The industry is ripe for process changes, not just increasing the speed of the traditionalist model.
How well is your company updating it’s likability with consumers, by improving the process side of your business, not just adopting the latest gadgets?
To find out more checkout my blog at Jason Rose
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