1) 2010 Big Broker Market Domination Action Plan – The pie in the sky scenario, something to strive for, but guessing no one will do.

2) Home sellers: Top 5 home improvement projects based on cost & return on investment – Interesting, I have a hard time buying some of these ROI numbers because I think they really would be hard to measure and results would vary so greatly, but still interesting.

3) Changes Coming to a HUD-1 Settlement Statement Near You – Everyone brushing up on the new HUD-1 statements? You should be.

4) Big Changes Coming for FHA Loans – If you want my opinion I say good, these all sound like good changes. Remember it is our money that is backing these loans, we should make sure the FHA is not the next Country Wide or Indymac.

5) foursquare, and the Mobilization of Social Media – So you have heard of Foursquare and not sure what all the fuss is about? Carpenter has a good rundown here. It’s fun, and if you live in the Tempe/Phoenix area hit me up on there.

6) New To Real Estate Blogging? 6 Simple Steps to Get You Started. – When it comes to real estate blogging you can always count on The Real Estate Tomato to give some good solid advice.

7) Quick Answer Series: What About Direct-Mail Marketing? – I don’t usually agree with everything Matt Jones says in his videos, but he always backs up his opinion very well and this is no different.

8) Psychologist Weighs In on Whether or Not People Want Privacy – This do we want privacy goes very well with the other AG article — Do We Have a Reasonable Right to Privacy Using Social Media?

9) Free Mobile Business Card: DUB Me Now – This is cool, and I am going to download it as soon as I post this, but its kind of hard to leave it behind on a counter when you show a house.

10) Running a Successful Real Estate Business Part Un: Kill Overhead – Interesting advice although may be designed more for larger agents or even brokerages.

1) Characteristics of home buyers and sellers from NAR – Almost half of all home buyers this year were first time home buyers between the age of 25-34 years old.

2) Using consumer confidence to guess where mortgage rates are going -  Dan Green shows how the stock market is up, home sales are up, but spending and consumer confidence is not so right now expect mortgage rates to remain fairly steady.

3) Strategic defaults: It depends how far under water you are – Walking away from your mortgage, who would have thought it was a “keeping up with the Joneses” thing.

4) An unhappy client can kill your reputation in 6 months or less – Letting an unhappy client go may be the best thing you can do for your business, because they can kill your reputation online.

5) Existing home sales surge to highest level since February 2007 – Sales were up more than 23% over the same month last year. That trend in November may end up changing a little as inventory levels (at least in Tempe AZ area) seem to be creeping up.

6) The end of the MLS as we know it? (Part: 546) – Rowles makes a good point on the MLS will still be needed even with Google and RPR.

7) Stop acting rich: Household struggles go beyond the mortgage payment – This goes perfect with one of my favorite Dave Ramsey quotes “live your wage.”

8) Selling your home during the holidays – John Jones addresses they myth that you should not sell your house during the holidays.

9) Commercial real estate not expected to recover until after 2010 – In many markets the residential housing market has started to recover, the commercial market is lagging behind and could be another couple years before any rebound starts.

10) Win an autographed copy of the Whuffie Factor. It’s easy! – Not sure what the Whuffie Factor is? Then you should really be entering this competition.

1) Are mortgage rates going up or down? – Dan Green thinks they will remain unchanged for the next month, as do half the people asked for the survey.

2) Think price doesn’t matter? – A look at what happened in a local market in one day and how price may have something to do with it. This was not the only post in the last 24 hours on price matters.

3) Is your Realtor a bully? – Should you hire a bully real estate agent?

4) No way has housing bottomed, says David Leavy – Despite three straight months of housing price increases, forecaster David Leavy says housing has not bottomed yet.

5) Buyers/sellers: What does few foreclosure/bank-owned properties on the market mean to you? – Bank owned foreclosure inventory is down in a lot of places, that means different things to buyers and sellers?

Video 14: We hear it all the time, why is my condo or house not selling? Well if you live in the Phoenix area the market can no longer be the reason you use to justify it, the reason is it is over priced! Either make improvements to justify the current asking price, or reduce the price to where it is competitive with the market. If you want to find out how much your house is worth email me Dean Ouellette.

1) Big changes coming for FHA loans – Starting in January it will be harder for buyers to qualify for an FHA loan.

2) Bonus offers in MLS are bad PR for the industry – Always interesting topic, does more money make the buyers agent push one house over another? I hope not.

3) What’s the downside to investing today? – Every other article on the web these days seems to be how now is the best time ever to buy a home. Here is a post that points out some cautions to keep in mind.

4) Sellers, please evacuate the building – Great topic, but what is really interesting is what @ECNewlin is doing with her blog. She has made it a day in the life of a real estate agent blog.

5) What’s important in an IDX real estate website – Some things you may want to consider when selecting an IDX vendor.

1) Wrong on so many levels – If you are an agent who deals with buyers and foreclosures you need to read this. If this doesn’t make you read your bank addendums then nothing will.

2) Loan modifications no match for rising US foreclosures – Even if the government is successful in in delivering three to four million loan mods over the next year, that still means roughly another 9 million foreclosures will be hitting the streets.

3) Incandescent light bulb ban in 2012 – Interesting piece on light bulbs, I had no idea the ban was coming.

4) 10 forgotten tips for preparing the exterior of your home for sale – So often we focus on staging the inside of the home, we forget about the exterior which makes the first impression.

5) It’s the premise, stupid – A look at why your Internet marketing may be failing.

Top 5 posts of the day for 7/9/2009 1) A headline to make home sellers cautions, but don’t panic – Just a reminder to agents, there is a reason we are not supposed to give out lock box codes.

2) What mortgage rates will do over the next 30 days – The group thinks rates will either remain unchanged or go down, Dan Green agrees and believes they will be roughly unchanged.

3) Sellers, don’t have stinky houses – Or actually they do, Jim Duncan has some advice for sellers.

4) Today’s home buyers: Who you are, what you want, what you buy – Interesting report on home buyer sentiment.

5) Do you know about the HOA? – Rhonda has some great advice about things to consider if you are moving into a home with an HOA.

I was talking with a couple from Chandler yesterday who were looking for a short sale agent for their home. They asked me for some things for them to keep in mind if they move forward on their short sale and of course that got me thinking of some basic short sale tips when selling your home.

Here are some good tips for sellers in short sale situations:

• Contact your lender and let them know your situation then start getting your paperwork needed for a short sale in order.
• Interview agents and ask them questions such as what they will need from you. If they don’t know (see above) then keep looking.
• Get your house ready for sale, take a few hours and make it look as good as possible.
• Price it right. If you do not have offers within a couple of weeks it is overpriced so lower it now.
• Make sure once you have a buyer your agent stays in constant contact with them so they don’t go looking elsewhere.
• Consider asking for earnest, it is not a common practice, but it makes sure a buyer is serious and greatly increases your chances of getting to a sale.

There are dozens of other short sale tips, but these are some of the key ones. A short sale is not short, just make sure when you are looking for a short sale agent, you hire someone who will put in the work needed to get the job done.

Top 5 real estate posts for Monday 5/18/2009

1) What to do when your bank won’t finance more than 4 properties (Even though Fannie Mae allows it) – Fannie Mae changed their policy in February to allow investors to finance up to 10 properties, but not all banks are honoring the change. Dan Green says if your bank doesn’t allow it there is an easy fix, find a new bank.

2) NAR punts on IDX decision – Here are two blog posts talking about NAR’s final decision to not yet make a decision on the IDX issue.  MIBOR blocks change as appears on Agent Genius and NAR Board sends IDX policy back to committee from Bloodhound.

3) Choosing the right Realtor to sell your home – Ines Hegedus-Garcia takes a look at some great tips on choosing a real estate agent if you are getting ready to sell your home.

4) Phoenix real estate auction starts today – While this auction has passed there is still some good tips if you plan on buying a home at auction in the future. We had one home in this auction that sold yesterday, the home had previously been on the market for $25K, it sold at auction for $33K. Still think auction’s are the place for a bargain?

5) Listen to your stager, not your heart– Kris Berg takes a quick look at using stagers to sell your home in a competitive market. The biggest piece of advice, just listen to the stager, they are the pro.

With nearly 50,000 homes on the market for sale in the Phoenix metro area, if you want to sell your house it needs to stand out. There are two ways to make it stand out, either price it under the market value, or make it a home that when others walk in they say to themselves, I have to have this house.

There are some small changes you can make to your home to make it stand out. Every house has little quirks that can easily and cheaply be fixed to make it look better. You may not even notice these things because you are so used to living with them, but trust me, buyers will notice them.

Patch holes in the walls. If you have any small holes or cracks in your walls either patch them yourself or hire a handy man to do it for you.

Cracked floors and counter tiles. You may have lived with that cracked tile on your back splash or floor for the last two years and not think it is a big deal, but a buyer is going to see that and think the house was not taken care of properly.

Many homes have a leaky faucet. Take a few minutes to try and fix these yourself or hire a plumber to help you. It may only be a few bucks to fix the faucet where a buyer may be thinking I can ask for another few hundred off the price to replace all the faucets.

Fix any doors or kitchen drawers that don’t work properly . If the buyer is really interested in your home, they will be opening all the doors and drawers so make sure they are all operating properly

That favorite sedona red room you have, consider painting it a neutral color. Neutral colors not only can help make the room look bigger, but chances are the buyer is not going to like your bright colors and again will be thinking about a discount on the selling price to have the house painted.

Make sure all your lights are working properly. If you have any bulbs that are burnt out take a minute to replace them.

These little fixes can make a big difference in a competitive market. Make your house stand out. Don’t be the house that has the orange bedroom and the broken utensil drawer, be the house that was loved and taken care of.