Although the housing market has slowed since the busy days after Hurricane Katrina, Spatz says Baton Rouge is poised to grow some more. "The second wave has yet to come," he says, noting that the slow pace of rebuilding in New Orleans is frustrating some business owners and residents. Spatz, who came into the market about six months after Katrina, has mostly handled retail and office development in the north, but he did build one subdivision. He didn't plan on building any retail or office in Louisiana, but says he changed his mind once he saw some available land on Summa Avenue. Spatz plans to build an 88,000-square-foot office building on the site, right behind Jacobs Engineering. Construction of the office building is set to begin in July, with the facility opening in October or November 2008. No space has been leased in the building yet, but Spatz says the demand is there. "There hasn't been any private Class A office space built in Baton Rouge in at least five years," he says. Spatz is also developing Learning World, a 10,000-square-foot pre-school/children's playground next to Crystal Lakes and a 5,100-square-foot shopping center in Port Allen. "We're looking at Baton Rouge as a long-term market," he says.
(Timothy Boone)
Creekstone Development, the developer responsible for the Towne Centre at Cedar Lodge, has sold two sites in their mixed-use project. R&F Investments purchased a 1.7-acre tract next to the Residence Inn by Marriott for about $978,000, or $12.50 per square foot. The new owner intends to construct a 30,000-square-foot, two-story office building, and has about half of it spoken for. The remaining 15,000 square feet will be offered for lease. George Kurz with Kurz & Hebert Commercial Real Estate brokered the transaction.
In a related deal, Creekstone sold a 3.5-acre site to Summa Office Park LLC, just east of The Reserve, for $18.50 per square foot. According to Kurz, the purchasers had no immediate plans for development, but they were negotiating with several build-to-suit type tenants. Kurz says these two sales represent the strong demand for well-located sites in the Baton Rouge market. "Good, quality vacant land is becoming harder and harder to obtain," he says.
(Appraiser Tom Cook owns Cook Moore and Associates. Reach him at 293-7006 or TCook@cookmoore.com.)
I met with one of my California-based lenders last week and asked, "What scares you about the current market?" He is used to my cheerful greetings and had a simple answer for me: "There is a lot of money out there, and deals are getting done on terms that do not make sense." One of the terms he focused on was interest-only payments. Now I have seen a lot of permanent deals done with interest-only payments (called "IO" loans in the trade) in the first couple of years, with the balance of the 10 years being based on a 30-year amortization. With more competition came longer IO periods to the point where it is now not unusual to get IO terms for the entire 10-year loan period.
By itself this aggressive compromise to standard (and dare I say prudent) loan underwriting is not enough to make a bad loan. After all, continued appreciation of the underlying asset value should bale you out in 10 years, right? But combine it with aggressive cash flow underwriting that presumes increases in rental rates above the standard 2% to 3% that a good appraiser will use (please note my restraint at this point) -- and historically low cap rates being applied by those same good appraisers -- and Houston, we may have a problem when the loan comes due.
As a borrower, I could live with a full-term IO loan if I had real upside in a property's value and/or cash flow. But I would have to think twice before pushing a property to the max AND getting IO terms. I know the loan is non-recourse, but that is no reason to raise the chances that I will be giving the keys back to the lender at maturity.
The point is to pay the money back.
(Brian Andrews is a certified mortgage banker specializing in the financing of commercial real estate. His business is Andrews Commercial Mortgage and he can be reached at brian.andrews@acmla.com.)
TODAY’S HEADLINES / March 27, 2007 / Baton Rouge Business Report Weekly Real Estate News
Public meeting on Zachary TND ThursdayHearings are being held this week at the Fellowship Church in Zachary to get community input for Americana, a traditional neighborhood development planned for La. 964, just south of Mt. Pleasant-Zachary Road. Steve Oubre of Architects Southwest, who has designed most of the TNDs in the works in South Louisiana, will host the architectural charrettes, which will involve the public, local business leaders, public officials and financial institutions. A public meeting to unveil the plans will be at 5 p.m. Thursday at the church. Americana is being developed by Shearwater Communities, led by David Matthews and Chris Mestayer. Good Growth Award winners namedThe Baton Rouge Growth Coalition honored 12 commercial and residential building projects last week as winners of the 2007 Good Growth Awards. The awards honor outstanding projects built during 2006. The winners, as determined by a panel of local and regional experts, are the Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center, Stonehenge Capital Headquarters, the Settlement at Willow Grove, Copper Mill Golf Community, Lee Michaels Fine Jewelry, the Eden Park Branch Library, McKinley Middle Magnet School, MAPP Construction Corporate Headquarters, Dimensions-In-Design, 635 Main St. Studios, YMCA Westside and The Bluff House. For a look at the winners, check out the special section in the March 27 Business Report.
This week's question: Are you concerned that problems with the subprime lending market could slow down local home sales?
Activity on O'Neal Lane has been spurred recently. R.W. Day Properties has been acquiring large tracts of land for a potential TND, which has increased interest in the surrounding areas. Auto Zone recently purchased a site for $10 per square foot, and an additional site has been sold for development of suburban office condominiums. Brent Garrett with Beau Box Commercial Real Estate Company brokered a site on O'Neal Lane totaling about three acres. The seller was BRRG Properties LLC, represented by Dr. Jacques A. De la Bretonne and Dr. William A. Gregoire. The purchaser was O'Neal Square LLC, represented by Anthony J. Marino. The property was purchased Friday for $587,520, or $4.50 per square foot. The property is south of LiRocchi Drive and is zoned heavy commercial. The zoning allows for development of either retail commercial use or a lower density use such as suburban office condominiums. "The purchaser liked the location because of the surrounding activity and the potential increase in value. It should be a good site for suburban offices," says Garrett. The office park should break ground this year.
Last week I wrote about a residential loan product known as an "Alt A loan" with the industry nickname of a "liar loan." CNN.com referred to these loans as ones made to "people with better credit scores who borrow with little or no verification of income, or so-called alternative documentation." In an effort to make a point I made a rather overly broad statement that these loans were made without adequate consideration of a borrower's repayment ability. In retrospect and based on e-mail from residential mortgage professionals, I need to redefine the point a bit.
Alt A loans are among a broad range of products offered by the residential mortgage industry to consumers looking to purchase or refinance a home. The better mortgage lenders and brokers are skilled at matching borrowers with the appropriate loan product, and there are many situations where an Alt A loan is the appropriate product, like when the homes are worth more than Fannie Mae's conventional mortgage guideline limitations. So long as the mortgage broker or lender has properly considered all aspects of the borrower's financial condition and the requirements of the loan program, there should be no problem and this should not be considered a risky loan.
The problem comes in when the borrower is matched with the wrong product just so a loan can be closed, and that was really the point I was trying to make. And that is absolutely true in the commercial mortgage world as well. Loan products can be abused in order to generate a fee or commission for the lender or mortgage broker if the parties are not careful. The borrowers are usually the ones who suffer the most.
So let me clarify my point from last week: Alt A loans are not risky loans when the lender, mortgage broker and borrower have underwritten the deal and considered repayment ability, even if that ability is not documented in the file. Alt A loans would be bad if the alternative documentation were used to hide a potential problem with repayment ability or other weakness.
If a well-underwritten loan goes bad, just do what we always do: blame the appraiser and move forward.
TODAY’S HEADLINES / March 21, 2007 / SOURCE: BATON ROUGE BUSINESS REPORTWork starts on Bass Pro siteConstruction crews are on the site of the Bass Pro shop, one day after the deal to build the outdoor store closed. "They've got earth moving equipment out there right now," says Denham Springs Mayor Jimmy Durbin. "The site has laid fallow for two years, so they're putting in fresh dirt." The title to the 24-acre site was transferred Tuesday from developer Jacob Fa-Kouri to the Denham Springs Economic Development District. VCC, the Atlanta-based contractor building the $40 million to $50 million store, plans to install lights on the property so construction can go on around the clock. "They're taking an 11-month project and doing it in eight months," says Durbin. "They want to squeeze in as much work as possible while the weather is dry." Bass Pro is set to open in November. Now that the site has been sold and work has started, Durbin says this will trigger retail development from businesses wanting to be near Bass Pro. "That will open that area up in a big way," he says.
Photos Furnished By Lisa Cobb
Submitted By William D. Cobb with Accurate Valuations Group, www.getfastvalue.com and www.accuratevaluationsgroup.com.
TODAY’S HEADLINES / March 20, 2007 / BATON ROUGE BUSINESS REPORT WEEKLY REAL ESTATE REPORT
Cane's lobbies against sign ordinanceAn executive with Raising Cane's restaurants has sent a letter to several Metro Council members, voicing concerns about proposed changes to the parish sign ordinance. Brad Sanders, vice president of real estate, design and construction for Cane's, says the sign ordinance is the toughest he's seen and could impact how the chain does business. The council is considering a change to the sign law, which would limit most of the heights to four feet and give businesses a five-year window to comply with the new rules. Sanders says for quick service restaurants such as Cane's, signs are a major sales driver. "From our perspective, it is very important that potential customers be able to view our signage from a distance so that they are able to react and maneuver their vehicles through traffic to our stores," says Sanders. Cane's has spent a significant amount of money on signs at its nine Baton Rouge locations, and was not counting on having to replace them in the next five years. Cane's doesn't object to using monument-style signs, but Sanders says the restaurant chain wants changes in the height and area to make them more visible. The Metro Council's Zoning Committee is set to discuss the ordinance Wednesday afternoon.
(Timothy Boone) Pelican Point stores starting to openOver the next few weeks many of the tenants in Main Street Pelican Point, the retail center in the Pelican Point golf community, are set to open. MIE Properties LA, which owns and developed the 42,000-square-foot shopping center off La. 44 in Gonzales, says it has leased about 75% of the space. Some of the tenants in the center include United Community Bank and Edward Jones, along with an adjoining Ralph's supermarket.
Walgreens pharmacy has acquired a site from Crabapple Properties Limited Partnership, at the intersection of La. 73 and La. 74 in Ascension Parish. The nearly 1.5-acre tract was purchased for about $1.4 million or $22 per square foot. The site is part of property acquired by Crabapple Properties that was developed as a single-family residential subdivision. Gary Louis of Sealy & Falgoust Real Estate Company, who brokered the sale, says the deal took more than two and a half years to get to the closing table. Walgreens recognized this as an excellent location in the heart of the growing Ascension Parish, Louis says.
I have not arranged residential loans in my career. It always looked like too much work. I focus exclusively on commercial real estate lending, so I am sometimes taken aback when I hear the jargon used in the residential field. Jargon like "subprime" loans refers to loans extended to borrowers who have "less than good" credit. Lenders have found a way to make home ownership available to borrowers with blemishes on their credit or who show limited capacity to service their monthly payments from income. Well, OK, I can appreciate that jargon. But when the industry openly refers to another product type as "liar loans," I start to get worried.
A recent CNN.com article refers these so-called liar loans (mostly referred to as Alt. A loans), to "people with better credit scores who borrow with little or no verification of income, or so-called alternative documentation." And it looks like these loans may be headed for the same trouble as the subprime loans that have been dominating the business press recently. Imagine that: a system that bases a loan decision largely on a credit score without adequate consideration of how new debt impacts a borrower's ability to repay that new debt is in trouble. Who could have seen that coming?
It should be clear that lenders in the consumer and commercial arenas are stretching prudent underwriting to continue the record lending volumes experienced in the last few years. But while the money is there, should borrowers be taking it in record numbers as well? As a commercial mortgage broker I suppose I should be thrilled at the volume and make hay while the sun is shining. My struggle is in arranging a loan that I know has a higher-than-usual chance of going bad, even if I get paid a fee to do it, because it hurts the industry.
Maybe I remember the 1980s and '90s when we had record foreclosures and workouts across the country. And I remember that all borrowers within the commercial real estate industry were thrown into the same category of problem loans, even those who had never missed a payment or shown signs of weakness. They were all painted with the same broad brush, and it sometimes caused good loans to go bad. It certainly strained long-time relationships, and none of us should want to see that happen again.
I know I don't.
Real estate recap: Work getting ready to start on Perkins Rowe part two; Gonzales to get a Walgreens; 'Spider' spins a web around apartments; Jefferson site goes for $2.9 millionProject should be underway by early 2008: The bulk of the Perkins Rowe development is still under construction, but plans are already underway for a second phase for the urban village at the corner of Perkins Road and Bluebonnet Boulevard. Tommy Spinosa, owner and manager of JTS, says work on a 15-acre tract behind Perkins Rowe should start late this year or in early 2008. The second phase will consist of two hotels, two office buildings and 60,000 to 80,000 square feet of retail space. Walgreens buys old Albertsons, plans Gonzales store: Walgreens has bought the Albertsons/Super Saver building in Gonzales for $8.1 million. Walgreens will demolish the empty store and build a new pharmacy on the site, says Beau Box, who brokered the sale. The five-acre site is at the corner of Airline Highway and La. 44, a spot that Box called a prime location in Ascension Parish. Carter buys apartment complex: A business headed by Metro Councilman Wayne "Spider" Carter bought a Baton Rouge apartment complex for $4.25 million. W&C Properties of Baton Rouge bought The Aspens Apartments, a 117-unit apartment complex on Lobdell Avenue, in a deal that closed last week. The complex was built in 1975 and is fully leased. Powell Group buys Jefferson Highway land: The Powell Group has purchased a nearly five-acre tract at Jefferson Highway and Brentwood, behind the Louisiana Firefighters Retirement System building, for $2.9 million. Plans are to build an upscale development on the site across from the Baton Rouge Country Club.
Neighboring Residential Development Websites Implemented
ASCENSION PARISH:
WWW.CEDARGROVEAPPRAISER.INFO
LIVINGSTON PARISH:
WWW.JUBANPARCAPPRAISER.INFO
WWW.LIVINGSTONTRACEAPPRAISER.INFO
WWW.PRESERVESUBDIVISIONAPPRAISER.INFOWWW.WOODLANDCROSSINGAPPRAISER.INFOWWW.SPRINGLAKEAPPRAISER.INFOWWW.WISTERIAPLACEAPPRAISER.INFOWWW.LAKESATMEADOWBROOKAPPRAISER.INFOWWW.SOUTHPOINTAPPRAISER.INFOWWW.DHIMORTGAGEAPPRAISER.INFOWWW.AMITESPRINGSAPPRAISER.INFOWWW.GULFSTREAMESTATESAPPRAISER.INFOWWW.COLLINSPLACEAPPRAISER.INFO
WEST BATON ROUGE PARISH:
WWW.SUGARMILLPLANTAPPRAISER.INFO
Submitted By William D. Cobb with Accurate Valuations Group, www.getfastvalue.com and www.accuratevg.com.
3 Day Weekend Photos in Central Louisiana - Thanks Nanny & Papa Buddy Lucas 3/10/2007
Adinah and Anna
Papa Buddy, Nanny, Adinah and Anna On Little River
Bill And His Girls On Lake Kincaid
Uncle Larry & Dylan Fishing
Where We Fished On Lake Kincaid @ Jessis & Susie's House
The Fish Weren't Biting That Day
A Man In Boat Passing By
Riding 4-Wheelers At Jessie Lachney's Camp on Little River
Anna with her Deer
Cousin Dylan, Anna and Friend, Olivia
TODAY’S HEADLINES / March 8, 2007 / BATON ROUGE BUSINESS REPORT DAILY REPORT
Livingston lots sell for $1.56 millionJohn Blount, a Livingston Parish developer and contractor, bought 52 townhome lots in The Lakes at Juban Crossing development for $1.56 million in a deal that closed earlier this week. The lots take up six acres, says Tom Delahaye, managing partner of CST Land Developers, which owns The Lakes at Juban Crossing. This is the largest townhome development of its kind in Livingston, and the property is across from the proposed Juban Crossing mixed-use development. "There's a demand for these townhomes because it's a new thing," Delahaye says. Blount plans to start building the townhomes in the next month, and the first units should be open in the fall, Delahaye says. The townhomes, which will have two or three bedrooms, will sell for between $160,000 to $200,000. The first single-family homes in The Lakes should begin construction later this year, Delahaye says.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEFor More Information, Contact:Accurate Valuations GroupOffice: 1-888-678-3544Fax: 1-866-663-6065bill@getfastvalue.com www.getfastvalue.com www.accuratevg.com
William D. Cobb, Appraiser, Inc. dba Accurate Valuations Group Launches New Web Site
Baton Rouge , LA, 3/13/2007 - William D. Cobb, Appraiser, Inc. dba Accurate Valuations Group of Baton Rouge announced the launch of a new state of the art appraisal services Web sites today. The new site, www.getfastvalue.com and www.accuratevg.com is powered by a la mode, inc. net.X technology, which integrates and leverages a range of desktop and Internet applications and data sources to extend the network to the desktop of William D. Cobb, Appraiser, Inc. and Accurate Valuations Group clients.''This new appraisal services site provides streamlined services for existing as well as potential new clients, while also providing our staff with technology integration that allows us to be more effective in our daily operations'' said company owner. Not only can clients place orders and track status, but they can also view and retrieve archived reports, all within a secure log-in environment. ''The new site also provides rich multi-media content for non-lender clients, showing them the benefits of hiring a professional appraiser in an engaging, highly professional presentation format that will create new demand for our services'' owner added. ''Going forward, the underlying a la mode net.X platform of our new site means that we are automatically going to be adding features and capabilities to meet our changing business requirements and keep up with the technology curve in Real Estate''. William D. Cobb, Appraiser, Inc. dba Accurate Valuations Group is a full service Real Estate Appraisal and Consulting firm specializing in valuation of residential properties. The company services East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Western Livingston and Upper Ascension Parish/Counties and is a recognized leader in residential property valuation in the area. William D. Cobb, Appraiser, Inc. dba Accurate Valuations Group combines a focus on customer service with the utilization of technology to provide clients with the highest quality and fastest delivery times in the market.
Please visit Bill Cobb's sites www.getfastvalue.com and www.accuratevg.com and Bill Cobb's New Appraiser Blog www.getfastvalue.com/avgblog.
Denham Springs Real Estate News - South Point S/D Market Summary 8/1/06 to 3/7/07 South Point S/D is one of Denham Springs largest residential developments with almost 800 lots. Within this time period, the lowest sales price was $109,000, the highest was $187,300. One the more popular plans, the 1998sf 7/4/2 Evangeline Meridian, has been selling between $165,000 to $173,000.
Avg Sold
$
Median Sold
Avg
SqFt
$/SF
DOM
Total#
Listings
Data Used With The Permission Of The Greater Baton Rouge Board of Realtors
Source: http://www.inman.com/printer.aspx?ID=62407
Ardell DellaLoggia Blogging can be more than a communications tool and networking platform for real estate professionals -- it can convey personality, generate leads and boost business, say real estate bloggers. "My whole business is blog clients. Most of my clients read the blog and then call me -- almost all of them," said Ardell DellaLoggia, a Seattle real estate agent who blogs at RainCityGuide.com and SearchingSeattle.com. "It became my main marketing channel." Ardell, who participated in an Inman News audio conference about blogging on Monday, also said this "is a little scary" because she never intended for the blog to bring in so many clients. The number of blogs focusing on real estate has increased dramatically over the last year. Real estate agents and companies are using blogs to inform and connect with potential customers and to network with one another. Clients who are blog readers tend to buy faster than the average online consumer, she said. "The blog clients that I've had almost always buy immediately, so it's different than ... lead-generation-type sites. By the time someone contacts me on the blog they are absolutely ready to go buy a house." Noah Rosenblatt, a real estate broker who created the UrbanDigs.com blog that offers tips for New York City buyers and sellers, agreed that blogs can be a powerful business tool. Prospective customers who reach out to him through his blog are often "ready to go," he said. "They know they want to work with you. That, in itself, makes it a much higher quality of lead." Local content can be key for Realtors who are seeking to drum up business in their market areas, Rosenblatt said. "Real estate is local. (Consumers) need that insight into the market. Tell them what's going on in your local market via your daily experiences." He also said that a blog can be a useful introduction to consumers -- a sort of window into "how you work, how you think ... It makes it a lot more transparent for a potential client for making a decision who to work with in real estate." Noah Rosenblatt While blogs can be effective marketing tools, bloggers should shy away from blatant self-promotion, Rosenblatt said. Proclaiming that you're the best Realtor in your market area or promoting your own property listings can be inappropriate for a blog site, he said. While some services offer to supply blog content written by other sources, Rosenblatt said these services can get in the way of an individual voice for a blog. "I happen not to believe too much in the ghostwriter or the buy-the-content formula. It takes away from the personality of what you're trying to do." Joseph Ferrara, co-founder of not-yet-launched Sellsius Real Estate and a licensed real estate broker in New York who writes for the Sellsius company blog, agreed, "If you're an agent (with a blog), like Noah, it has to be your voice out there. I don't think there's any dispute about that." But a big company with a blog may find some success with third-party content, he said. "If you're a big company it may not be a bad thing. Our philosophy: We're pragmatists. We'll try it and see what happens." Ferrara said it can pay to be experimental with a blog. "You have to think outside the blog. If you do what everybody else is doing it's just too crowded a space to get heard above the din. Try everything and see what happens." Joseph Ferrara Building a successful blog has everything to do with "B-E-E-P," Ferrara said. "BEEP" is an acronym that represents four noteworthy aspects of blogging: brand-building, entertainment, engaging your readers and presenting useful content, he said. "We just try to educate people and do it in an entertaining way." It's important to be very focused in crafting blog content, said Mary McKnight, the so-called "chief blogging evangelist" for the RSS Pieces Web site that provides Realtors with online marketing tools. For example, a blog post that offers advice about selling a home at the right price can be further narrowed to focus on improving the sales price in a given market area by a specific dollar amount. "Show the reader what they're getting out of this post ... specific and expressed benefits, not just implied benefits." McKnight and Ferrara noted the importance for real estate bloggers to network with other bloggers and participate at other blogs to find inspiration and expand their sphere of influence. It can pay off to list a blog in several Web directories, as these links can help steer more traffic to the site, McKnight said. Also, bloggers can join blog rings such as MyBlogLog.com, she said, and participate in blog carnivals such as CarnivalofRealEstate.com to boost traffic. All of the audio conference participants said that their blogs have generated business, either through advertising revenue or new clients. To keep up with other real estate blogs, the blogging experts recommended RSS feed readers that can grab and channel blog postings from various sites to a central location and eliminate the need to surf multiple sites. Likewise, Ferrara said it's good advice for real estate agents to offer a subscription to their blog as an electronic feed and to prominently feature this ability at their site. Ferrara said that the Sellsius blog feed is abbreviated to show headlines and a few sentences of each posting so that it isn't easy for other sites to steal and reproduce the items in entirety. Mary McKnight While the Sellsius bloggers have chased down content burglars who post blog items at other sites, and DellaLogia also noted that there can be a lot of plagiarism among bloggers. "It isn't really about being deceitful," she said -- in some cases people reproduce material because they don't know how to provide links to the content, she said. "Linking to somebody's article is the appropriate way to (refer to other content)." McKnight said it's important for real estate bloggers to remember that they "are not an island" in their blog, and they should provide links on their blog to other resources and other places on their own Web sites. McKnight and Ferrara recommended Copyblogger.com as a site with useful tips on creating an effective blog. DellaLogia said there is a definite "culture of blogging" that can be unique for a given area, noting that unmoderated blog comments are the norm in the Seattle-area market. She also said that real estate bloggers should "embrace new technology to be successful," as "the average person reading a blog is pretty much real estate- and technology-savvy." *** Send tips or a Letter to the Editor to glenn@inman.com or call (510) 658-9252, ext. 137.
Blogging can be more than a communications tool and networking platform for real estate professionals -- it can convey personality, generate leads and boost business, say real estate bloggers.
"My whole business is blog clients. Most of my clients read the blog and then call me -- almost all of them," said Ardell DellaLoggia, a Seattle real estate agent who blogs at RainCityGuide.com and SearchingSeattle.com. "It became my main marketing channel."
Ardell, who participated in an Inman News audio conference about blogging on Monday, also said this "is a little scary" because she never intended for the blog to bring in so many clients.
The number of blogs focusing on real estate has increased dramatically over the last year. Real estate agents and companies are using blogs to inform and connect with potential customers and to network with one another.
Clients who are blog readers tend to buy faster than the average online consumer, she said. "The blog clients that I've had almost always buy immediately, so it's different than ... lead-generation-type sites. By the time someone contacts me on the blog they are absolutely ready to go buy a house."
Noah Rosenblatt, a real estate broker who created the UrbanDigs.com blog that offers tips for New York City buyers and sellers, agreed that blogs can be a powerful business tool. Prospective customers who reach out to him through his blog are often "ready to go," he said. "They know they want to work with you. That, in itself, makes it a much higher quality of lead."
Local content can be key for Realtors who are seeking to drum up business in their market areas, Rosenblatt said. "Real estate is local. (Consumers) need that insight into the market. Tell them what's going on in your local market via your daily experiences."
He also said that a blog can be a useful introduction to consumers -- a sort of window into "how you work, how you think ... It makes it a lot more transparent for a potential client for making a decision who to work with in real estate."
While blogs can be effective marketing tools, bloggers should shy away from blatant self-promotion, Rosenblatt said. Proclaiming that you're the best Realtor in your market area or promoting your own property listings can be inappropriate for a blog site, he said.
While some services offer to supply blog content written by other sources, Rosenblatt said these services can get in the way of an individual voice for a blog. "I happen not to believe too much in the ghostwriter or the buy-the-content formula. It takes away from the personality of what you're trying to do."
Joseph Ferrara, co-founder of not-yet-launched Sellsius Real Estate and a licensed real estate broker in New York who writes for the Sellsius company blog, agreed, "If you're an agent (with a blog), like Noah, it has to be your voice out there. I don't think there's any dispute about that." But a big company with a blog may find some success with third-party content, he said. "If you're a big company it may not be a bad thing. Our philosophy: We're pragmatists. We'll try it and see what happens."
Ferrara said it can pay to be experimental with a blog. "You have to think outside the blog. If you do what everybody else is doing it's just too crowded a space to get heard above the din. Try everything and see what happens."
Building a successful blog has everything to do with "B-E-E-P," Ferrara said. "BEEP" is an acronym that represents four noteworthy aspects of blogging: brand-building, entertainment, engaging your readers and presenting useful content, he said. "We just try to educate people and do it in an entertaining way."
It's important to be very focused in crafting blog content, said Mary McKnight, the so-called "chief blogging evangelist" for the RSS Pieces Web site that provides Realtors with online marketing tools. For example, a blog post that offers advice about selling a home at the right price can be further narrowed to focus on improving the sales price in a given market area by a specific dollar amount. "Show the reader what they're getting out of this post ... specific and expressed benefits, not just implied benefits."
McKnight and Ferrara noted the importance for real estate bloggers to network with other bloggers and participate at other blogs to find inspiration and expand their sphere of influence.
It can pay off to list a blog in several Web directories, as these links can help steer more traffic to the site, McKnight said. Also, bloggers can join blog rings such as MyBlogLog.com, she said, and participate in blog carnivals such as CarnivalofRealEstate.com to boost traffic.
All of the audio conference participants said that their blogs have generated business, either through advertising revenue or new clients.
To keep up with other real estate blogs, the blogging experts recommended RSS feed readers that can grab and channel blog postings from various sites to a central location and eliminate the need to surf multiple sites. Likewise, Ferrara said it's good advice for real estate agents to offer a subscription to their blog as an electronic feed and to prominently feature this ability at their site. Ferrara said that the Sellsius blog feed is abbreviated to show headlines and a few sentences of each posting so that it isn't easy for other sites to steal and reproduce the items in entirety.
While the Sellsius bloggers have chased down content burglars who post blog items at other sites, and DellaLogia also noted that there can be a lot of plagiarism among bloggers. "It isn't really about being deceitful," she said -- in some cases people reproduce material because they don't know how to provide links to the content, she said. "Linking to somebody's article is the appropriate way to (refer to other content)."
McKnight said it's important for real estate bloggers to remember that they "are not an island" in their blog, and they should provide links on their blog to other resources and other places on their own Web sites. McKnight and Ferrara recommended Copyblogger.com as a site with useful tips on creating an effective blog.
DellaLogia said there is a definite "culture of blogging" that can be unique for a given area, noting that unmoderated blog comments are the norm in the Seattle-area market. She also said that real estate bloggers should "embrace new technology to be successful," as "the average person reading a blog is pretty much real estate- and technology-savvy."
***
Send tips or a Letter to the Editor to glenn@inman.com or call (510) 658-9252, ext. 137.
From: http://www.businessreport.com/dailyreport.cfm?cid=53
Report: Nation on the verge of worst foreclosure crisis in 20 yearsThe Christian Science Monitor says easy credit is backing the housing industry into the worst mortgage crisis since the 1980s. An increasing number of people who bought homes with subprime mortgages are seeing higher interest rates kick in, leading to more foreclosures and defaults. Some housing experts worry a pullback could make it more difficult for people with poor credit to buy homes, which could slow down an already sluggish market. Read the article here.
Poll: Readers notice more RealtorsThe majority of Real Estate Weekly readers say they've seen an increase recently in the number of local Realtors. Fifty-five percent say there are more Realtors, while 4% say the number has gone down. Forty-one percent say they haven't noticed a change in the number of people in the real estate business. Nearly 350 people participated in the survey.
Today's question:Are you seeing a tightening in the local subprime lending markets?
Midwest Medical Supply of St. Louis paid $2 million for the Albertsons grocery store building at the corner of Joor and Greenwell Springs roads. KLAFF Realty of Chicago held the 62,500-square-foot building. The price, about $32 per square foot, is significantly less than it cost to build it. The store was on a 7-acre site, but KLAFF kept the two acres adjoining the frontage along Greenwell Springs Road and will sell it separately. The company will use the property for a retail distribution facility. MMS plans to renovate the building in order to change its use from retail to distribution. Grey Mullins and Brent Garrett with Beau Box Commercial Real Estate brokered the transaction.
When interest rates move, they can move quickly. The reasons for quick movements can be varied and difficult to pinpoint. The rapid downward movement in the 10-year Treasury the past week is fairly easy to explain. There was a panic in the stock market (mostly the Asian market) that caused portfolio managers to dump their shares and stash the cash in a safe place. And there is no safer place than in U.S. Treasuries.
All this panic buying of Treasuries had a natural and predictable result. When demand goes up, the price goes up. And as Willie Staats used to drill into our heads in banking class at LSU, when the price of a fixed rate security goes up, the yield goes down. In this case, the 10-year yield dropped to its lowest point in three months at just under 4.5%. It appears this rally in the bond market is losing steam as confidence in the stock market returns, so expect rates to rebound over the next few days.
During a conference call Monday with other mortgage brokers across the country, I heard reports that some permanent lenders had been widening their spreads by as much as 10 basis points in response to the dip in the 10-year Treasury. As I have said in the past, no lender wants to be out of position when rates change. A sudden drop in Treasuries could leave a lender without a profit unless the spread is adjusted. If you have been in discussions with lenders on interest rates, you might want to check again to see if the pricing quote is still valid.
Real estate recap: II City Plaza changing; Investors buy Siegen property; Jarreau has a big week; Second TND approved; Land at Burbank and West Lee sells for $20 millionCosts cause II City Plaza plans to change: Plans have changed for Mike Wampold's II City Plaza office building on North Boulevard. The developer says construction costs have caused the building's parking garage to be built as a separate structure instead of as the lower levels of the 260,000-square-foot building. Construction of the office building is set to start early this summer and finish by December 2008. Office building, hotel sell: Donnie Jarreau Real Estate closed on two multimillion-dollar deals Thursday, selling an office building and hotel. Bobby Waters, an investor and developer from Walker, bought the old Amedisys building on South Sherwood Forest Boulevard for $3 million. Waters plans to make major renovations to the 36,000-square-foot ANNC Plaza building and will move some of his offices there. Trimarian Hospitality of Biloxi, Miss., paid $2.6 million for the Best Western-Lobdell. The 50-room hotel will remain a Best Western, but Trimarian, which owns hotels across the Gulf Coast, plans to make some renovations. Central TND gets green light: The Central Planning Commission approved specific plans for a 185-acre traditional neighborhood development Thursday night, the first project to go through the East Baton Rouge Parish TND ordinance. The next step for the Village at Magnolia Square is to complete the engineering drawings for the utility systems that will run through the community, says developer Jimmy Nunnally. Construction could start on Magnolia Square at the start of the summer. Investors plan TND south of LSU:A 550-acre tract of land at the intersection of Burbank and West Lee drives has been sold to a group of New Orleans investors for $20 million. Walker Baus, an attorney and investor, says plans are to build a traditional neighborhood development on the site, which is bordered by West Lee, Nicholson Drive and Burbank.
Baton Rouge Real Estate News - Shenandoah Estates S/D Market Summary From 1/2006 to 3/6/2007
Why Choose Shenandoah Estates S/D? Shenandoah Estates is probably the largest residential development in Baton Rouge with approximately 23 separate filings. Shenandoah Est. is so large that both the Census Bureau and national Map Makers have Shenandoah listed as a City within Baton Rouge, which is not correct. My family moved to Shenandoah Est. in 1973 and built our home for $32,000, which today is worth approx. $145,000, a 353% increase in 34 years.
Source: www.bankrate.com and http://www.valuationreview.com
It apparently isn’t the fault of appraisers that the real estate industry took a downturn in 2006.
Thomas Riehle, a partner in RT Strategies, which conducted the research for the National Association of Home Builders, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the things that matter far more for potential homebuyers, Riehle said, are price, mortgage interest rates and their housing needs.
Fixed mortgage rates remain historically low at under 6.25 percent, and have, in the last nine months, been falling more than they have been rising, according to data supplied by Freddie Mac, which tracks the rates weekly.
Median prices have been declining over the last year for both new and existing houses, which David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, has called a necessary “correction.”
Reduced affordability is one of the major reasons for the drop in home sales nationally over the last year, Lereah said.
Rising affordability, low mortgage rates, and other conditions suggesting a stabilizing of the nation’s house market boosted builder confidence in November for the second straight month, the NAHB reported.
When asked to rate the importance of several factors that might affect their decisions to buy or not to buy a home, survey respondents put the home's price at the top of the list, with 80 percent citing its significance.
The NAHB survey of 2,000 households was conducted from Oct. 26 to 29.
Looking ahead, the outlook for the real estate market in 2007 may not be all doom and gloom. Previously owned home sales will slowly rise. Mortgage rates will rise slightly but remain at historically low levels.
NAR officials expect the volume of existing home sales to rise, while new-home sales will continue to slide downward, according to Copley News Service.
“Roughly three-quarters of the country will experience a sluggish expansion in 2007, while other areas should continue to show lower sales for at least part of this year,” Lereah, said in a press release. “Most of the correction in home prices is behind us, but general gains in value this year will be modest by historical standards.”
Analysts like Lereah have said the housing market has been experiencing a correction phase. Now, it appears the industry has weathered the correction without the bloodletting that many had predicting. Median prices of resale houses have fallen 3.6 percent nationally year-to-year, and anecdotal reports of 10 to 20 percent asking-price reductions in formerly hyperinflated markets are commonplace.
"Home buyers, especially first-time buyers, with the combined benefits of seller flexibility and an unexpected drop in mortgage interest rates in recent months, have provided a window of opportunity. These conditions will persist in many areas until spring, when inventory supplies are likely to become more balanced," Lereah said.
Considering all factors, good and not so good, the market looks increasingly healthy for the year. By the fourth quarter of 2007, existing-home sales will be 4.6 percent higher than at the current time, the association predicts.
New-home sales are expected to continue their slide downward, showing another 9.4 percent drop this year. Much of the sluggishness in new-home sales is pegged to cuts in builder construction to support pricing for current inventories. Also, high construction costs in many areas are minimizing potential profits.
However, it should be noted that sales of new single-family homes increased in November by 3.4 percent over the previous month, according to a U.S. Commerce Department report - a jump that surprised many experts.
“This is a very good report and is consistent with the idea that the abrupt downward correction in home sales from the unsustainable highs of 2005 has reached its end,” said David Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders.
As for the mortgage market, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is predicted to gradually increase in rates to 6.7 percent by the fourth quarter of this year, according to NAR projections.