Archive for March, 2008
Deep Blogging Tips by Jeff Corbett
March 19th, 2008 Categories: Blogging Tips, social networking optimization
Blogging Tip of the month week:
Blog through both sides of your mouth.
-JC
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REALonomics Nails Traditional Real Estate Economics
March 19th, 2008 Categories: Real estate economics, alternative real estate commission models
REALonomics is a bit edgy…we ride the rim of the business model discussion orb, hoping to pull owners out of the spinning vortex of financial destruction to the edge of new thinking that tells them, you can make a lot of money in this business but not the old way. We deliberately drag owners into a new universe of thinking, hoping they will jettison the old in favor of the new.
Also See:
The Traditional Real Estate Commission Model. A Critical Assessment
Real Estate Professionals Need a Better Compensation Model, One As Local As They Are
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Joel Burslem Likes Widgets
March 14th, 2008 Categories: Social Networking, social networking optimization, widget the web
…many feel the future of the web will widgetized.
One of the many…
Also See:
DarWidgetry. The Evolution of Web Applications
2008 Mortgage and Real Estate Predictions…
New Social Networking Strategies
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Top Ten Most Admired Mortgage Company’s
March 11th, 2008 Categories: Fortune Magazine, Mortgage News
‘What can I say about the mortgage industry that hasn’t already been said about Afghanistan, it’s bombed out and depleted’. -h/t Dave Chappelle
I’ve pretty much refrained from smacking the mortgage industry around on TXB since the middle of last year when ‘kicking the cat’ became en vogue and too mainstream. Many (many) others have taken the baton and carried it well, but this story was low hanging fruit and I couldn’t resist.
Fortune magazine has put together a list of the most admired companies in America and categorized them by industry, Mortgage Services included.
The top 10 most admired Mortgage Service companies according to Fortune’s poll are as follows:
- Land America Financial Group
- Washington Mutual
- Fidelity National Financial
- First American
- Sovereign Bank
- IndyMac
- Stewart Information Services
- Freddie Mac
- Thornburg
- Countrywide Financial
and here come the darts…
Land America, Fidelity National, and Stewart Information provide ancillary services to the mortgage industry (title, escrow, credit, technology, etc)…none actually lend money or originate mortgages, which explains how they made this list.
First American is being sued for fraud by the New York State Attorney Generals office. They allegedly conspired with WAMU, where WAMU: “strong-armed them into a system designed to rip off homeowners and investors alike”.
Thornburg may be out of business soon, although recent news from The Fed (not K-Fed) has seemed to re-energize the REIT. “Thornburg Mortgage, which specializes in large adjustable-rate mortgages (the kind that wouldn’t qualify for backing by Fannie or Freddie), was brought to its knees last week after successive margin calls by banks.” - Forbes
Sovereign Bancorp and IndyMac are probably the ‘best off’ of the lenders on this list, but thats not saying much. Freddie had a $2.5B fourth quarter loss, and Countrywide…never mind, I digress.
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Round Two of The Blog Brawl at VARBuzz
March 11th, 2008 Categories: Blog Brawl
Shame on me for not realizing I made it out of round one of The Blog Brawl over at VARBuzz until Sunday night.
As a 4 seed The XBroker has upheld its pre-tournament ranking thus far, here’s hoping Blueroof doesn’t pull an upset, the force is strong with them.
Round Two Voting is open until tomorrow…*nuge-wink, nudge-wink*
-Voting for TXB publicly will get one some link-love 
**Update:
Success! The XBroker moves into the Sweet Sixteen. Thanks to all who voted! I’ll be soliciting for more votes once the bracket evolves over at VARBuzz 
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