1) When the cash-for-clunkers “logic” comes to the real estate market, it’s time for every homeowner with equity to cash in big – Greg makes a good argument that if you have equity in your house right now may be the perfect storm time to consider selling and moving up in houses.

2) 19 tips for better real estate property ads and flyers – Most in-depth explanation of how to make a good property flyer I may have ever seen.

3) 5 tips for selling your home in a down market – Most everywhere in the country right now while the market is hot, it is still a down market. This post should help you think about ideas to get the most for your house or your listing.

4) Do you really think I’m visiting your Facebook profile to look for homes? Really!?! – Nik Nik looks at different ways in which you can post listings into your Facebook pages and some of the pros and cons of each.

5) Trulia’s November price reduction report – Home sellers cut $28.1 billion off asking prices – A quarter of all U.S. homes have had a price reduction. Everyone knows the problem with overpricing houses and how you should stay ahead of the market… yet..

6) You’re buying a new home. Should you work with the listing agent? A buyer agent? An attorney? – This is state specific for the attorney part at least. I believe if you are shopping for a home you should ALWAYS be working with a buyers agent who you hire to work for you.

7) Who else wants to be a commercial real estate broker? – Seems the commercial industry is a lot older and more experienced than the residential.

8 ) Why won’t these real estate agents sell my house? – Having a hard time finding a listing agent to sell your house because it is a short sale? You are not alone I guess.

9) “Getting better” scenes from movies – I wish we could use them with clients – This one is just fun… makes me want to go watch Better Off Dead tonight (one of the top 5 movies of all time).

10) A veteran’s journey home – There were a lot of great tributes to veterans yesterday, in my opinion this was the best.

1) Virtual RE BarCamp on November 17th, 2009 – Been unable to attend an RE BarCamp? Here may be your chance.

2) My Usual Suspects moment – real estate lead generation – Anything that starts out with a Usual Suspects movie clip you know is going to be good… and this post delivers and gives good advice on return on work.

3) FHA down payment requirement could increase to 5% – As it would mean less people able to buy a house I am not supposed to like this, but I think it is a good idea as some people who are buying houses really shouldn’t be.

4) For the love of God, buy this house!! – When hiring a listing agent make sure they know the market.

5) How are Realtors earning trust? – Not only does Greg deliver an interesting topic of Realtor’s involvement in earning trust, it is also an interesting video shoot idea.

Top 5 real estate posts of the day 6/19/20091) What you may be missing about a short sale – There are some major differences between a traditional sale and a short sale. Ardell takes a look at the difference using show charts.

2) We are looking to attract more listings without paying a lot of advertising expenses – Russell Shaw has some good advice on getting listings and it comes down to two things, marketing and prospecting. If you are not going to spend money on marketing, you need to be out meeting people and prospecting.

3) Curb appeal or web appeal – Ines looks at web appeal, is it the new curb appeal?

4) 10 things to look out for with bank-owned property contracts – Banks love to rewrite state contracts after you agree on a price, we really cannot do much about it either. We either accept their version or we look for a non-foreclosure. Danilo takes a look at some things to be careful about.

5) Buyer’s agents and ethics: Is your agent hiding houses from you? – This was pointed out to me last night after I had just got done showing a $60,000 house with a whopping $100 co-broke.

One of my best friends called me the other day and said his dad may have some buyers for me. His father is a former Air Force General who currently owns an import/export business that does work in China. Many of his contacts in China had been asking about luxury condos in cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix.

I told him I could help him out in the Phoenix and Tempe condo market. There were plenty of Tempe and Phoenix condos on the market that would match what they may be looking for. He was hoping there would be somewhere they could view properties with pictures online. Of course the easy option is do an IDX search and just populate the MLS results into a web page they could view. But I am a tech geek and that was not good enough for me. What I wanted to do was build a web page for each listing in the MLS then using Google, translate the page into Chinese for them.

While if I had gone with the IDX search I would not need permission to include anyone’s listings in my project, I decided I would ask each listing agent if I could create a page for their listing on my site that would be used to advertise to the potential Chinese investors. Of course I would show the page to the listing agent.

As I saw it, basically what I am offering is another free advertising tool for their high end luxury Tempe and Phoenix condos for free. Worst case scenario I waste 15 hours of my life building the site out for no results, best case scenario I bring buyers to the market which helps me and the seller’s agent.

I pulled some listings I wanted to start with and ended up e-mailing 15 listing agents. After e-mailing all 15 in the last 24 hours I have heard back from 11, one was a bad e-mail address and I am still waiting to hear from the three other agents. Of the 11 that responded, 10 gave me permission and seven of those 10 went out of their way to tell me how thrilled with the idea they were.

Then there was one agent we will call Diane. She was not as happy. She told me in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to use her property, only she was allowed to advertise it. I had no problem with her decisions at all, it is her listing she can do what she wants. After talking with another agent today he pointed out something I really did not consider. Can you imagine being the owner of an $800,000 condo, having your unit on the market for months and your agent turned down a new free advertising opportunity?

What do you think? Send me an e-mail or leave me a comment. Let me know what you think of this one listing agents decision.