© alphaspirit – Fotolia.com

Even with this budding potential though, for your guest blogging strategies to work effectively you need to ensure that your online sales actually increase. This is to do with your conversion rate, of course. Many times SEO campaigns end up creating traffic increases substantially, while sales somehow lag far behind the potential, this is because a site’s  bounce rate is too high in many cases.

Keeping that in mind, read on to discover the top eight tips for increasing online sales via the utilization of guest blogging.

One – Finding the right blog

You need to make sure that you guest post for relevant blogs. After all, you need to generate targeted traffic. If you post on blogs which are not associated with the industry you operate in then you won’t benefit. Moreover, it is recommended that you go for high quality blogs with an editorial focus. These blogs are more credible.

Two – Quality content

It is surprising how many people overlook the importance of quality content. Of course you want to create links and promote your website. However, people aren’t going to be interested if your content is generic and of a poor quality.

Three – Build strong partnerships

Guest blogging gives you the potential to build up a strong partnership with other bloggers. Make sure you do this rather than posting a blog and then simply dropping it afterwards. After all, you can build up your reputation via other blogs and thus create several loyal viewer and customer bases.

Four – Find the right balance

Don’t brag about your company too much or try and shove your business down the viewer’s throat. You can mention it and you will have your call to action of course. Viewers want to read your blog to enhance their knowledge first and foremost, not be part of a sales pitch.

Five – Share

Make sure that you share the article via social media platforms. After all, utilizing Twitter and Facebook is via to search engine optimization these days. This is a great way to generate more targeted traffic.

Six – Respond to comments left

When people comment on a post you have wrote then you should take the effort to respond. This works well because you create a bond between yourself and the viewer. This is likely to turn viewers into customers.

Seven – Call to action

A call to action is a great way to generate traffic because if people are interested in what you have blogged about then they are going to be likely to want to delve a little bit deeper. The problem is that people are so eager to include a call to action so they post it as soon as possible – leave it until the end of your article.

Eight – Keyword quality not quantity

You need to use keywords which people are most likely to search to get to your website and you need to use them naturally. Do not use the keyword which gets the most Google searches and do not place it everywhere in your article. For example, if you sell custom made jewelry then ‘jewelry’ may pull in more search results but ‘custom made jewelry’ will pull in more relevant traffic and thus works better.

If you consider the eight points in this article then you will be assured to get the most out of guest blogging and to enhance your conversion rate. Guest posting is always considered to be an advantage if you are in a plan to develop your website or blog and enhance your reputation in the online world. If you are unsatisfied with the flow of traffic to your site or blog, you should start guest posting to other sites or blogs and have a look how your influence develops online.

So, this is how postings acts as a benefit for search engines in view of the fact that host bloggers consist of a link to your blog that, over the time, will be beneficial.

About Author : Lisa Jane is a freelance journalist. She used High Position as a resource tool for information on search engine optimization (SEO) for guest blogging.

We’ve sold many homes and have learned over the years some of the best ways to sell your home.  Below are 10 tips to sell your home this winter.

Make the most of Natural Light

Your agent can help you schedule showings during daylight hours. During the middle of winter, even if someone comes by right after work it will already be dark. A good rule of thumb is to never turn down a showing. However, try to encourage buyers to come during the day, even if it is on weekends. This is when they can see your home in the best light. Before showings, make sure to turn on all lights. Also, plan ahead to clean your lamps and light fixtures. While you’re doing this, check the max wattage for your lamps and make sure the highest watt bulbs are being used to give off the most light.

Heat Things Up

Before a buyer comes to see your home, adjust the thermostat to a warmer temperature which will make your home feel cozy and welcoming. Make sure to do this before showings so the heat doesn’t kick on while buyers are there since this can be noisy. If a buyer is cold they won’t be comfortable and that will shorten the amount of time they spend in your home. If you have a gas fireplace, turn it on right before the tour of your home to set a warm and homey atmosphere. If your home has a wood burning fireplace, since leaving an unattended fire can be a safety concern, you can still dress the hearth for a fire to give buyers the idea.

Clear a Path

If a buyer can’t easily get to your home for a showing, your house is going to be hard to sell. Make sure to keep your walkways and driveways shoveled and free of ice. Aside from being a potential safety hazard, if your walks are not attended to it can give the first impression that other maintenance is being deferred as well. If you are out of town or unable to shovel regularly, consider hiring a landscaper or neighbor to help clear your walks on a regular basis.

Wash Windows

Many sellers forget to wash the windows, especially during the winter. Make sure to wash your windows before listing your home to take advantage of as much natural light as possible and make things look clean and well maintained. Make sure to dust your blinds, curtains, and other window treatments. It’s all about first impressions.

Set Light Timers

Since schedules change you are probably not home every day exactly at dusk, set light timers to turn on your porch light and a few lamps inside. This will keep your house illuminated and welcoming if buyers drive by or stop in for a showing before you have a chance to get home.

Play up the Positives

Homes located in a community with a home owner’s association often include shoveling in the HOA fee. Or, your home may be located on a main bus route which means the city will plow and de-ice more frequently. These are all positives that are especially advantageous during the winter; make sure your agent mentions these features to potential buyers.

Inviting Winter Scents

Make sure to give your home a nice aroma. Baked goods like chocolate chip cookies are a perfect scent for winter. Make sure not to overdo it, buyers will wonder what you are trying to cover up.  Don’t forget to take care of bad smells too, like smoke or pet odors. If something smells musty you should clean the house, air out the item, and then have a friend come over to make sure the smell is gone. If your carpets have several pet stains try to replace or clean them before listing your home if your budget allows.

Set the Mood

Turn on a radio before showings. Choose classical station or one that plays other soft music. Make sure the volume is turned down so the music is just background noise. This will help to set a soothing mood to keep buyers looking around longer in your home.

Winter Staging

Help buyers envision living in your home. Try to add a few simple touches that make things more comfortable during the winter, like a warm throw on the sofa, or a comforter on the bed. Winter flowers are a nice touch, choose a poinsettia or amaryllis. Also, you may want to leave some warm cider and cookies in the kitchen for buyers to enjoy which will make your home more memorable when the buyer has seen several other houses already.

Curb Appeal Still Counts

Although your landscaping is probably covered with snow, you still need to spruce up your home’s curb appeal before selling. Since it is too cold to touch up paint, wash your home’s exterior with warm soapy water and take care of any maintenance items you may have missed during the summer. Make sure the eaves and rain gutters are in working condition and free from debris such as old leaves and icicles. After a big snowstorm, clean the snow from large branches and shrubs so they don’t hang over walkways, prune them if necessary. Keeping your home’s exterior looking great during the winter shows buyers pride of ownership.

Photo credits: Winter Sales – courtesy © Vibe Images – Fotolia.com

Lesson One – Somebody Else Already Did It

There is no more rewarding human trait than our ability to emulate. Whether you like it or not, copying and making better those things you see others do, this is how you get better. Watch Michael Jordan drive past an opponent, stir in your own physical and mental traits, and Voila! You got yourself a “first step” in basketball. By the way, this works in everything. I evidence a New York real estate firm, Corcoran Group.

Mashable, the world’s leading technology blog for those who do not know, carried an article two years ago by Erica Swallow entitled “How Real Estate Pros are Using Social Media for Real Results”. This was over two years ago, mind you, that’s like eons in computer years. For starters, the post reveals how Corcoran has approached social media from a conversion standpoint, as well as from an operational standpoint. “Engagements” like Corcoran’s YouTube channel featuring CEO Pam Liebman (at right) answering questions posed on Facebook, for a good instance, shows a forward thinking business group at the very least experimenting with these new communication channels.

The final take on social media at this stage of the game, for big time players like Corcoran especially is – they are still doing it. Granted the cost in time and resource for producing Pam Liebman answering questions posed on SM channels may be prohibitive, but the video below showing Corcoran VP Noble Black, speaks of every agents responsibility to clients, and especially of our “digital business world”.  I know you can glean from Black at least two important facts. Leading agencies have already refined their digital engagements – and they are still at work doing it. This is all the “would be” digital real estate agent needs to know, Corcoran is in the news nearly every day.

The Pudding Proven

Now that basic social media networking efficacy is settled, what about conversion rates? ROI, the Holy Grail for business owners who know anything at all about online marketing, any business has a burning need to understand what their dollar buys. And too, this is the most difficult component of social media engagement to capture, validate, and in the end GET. Unlike email marketing and other forms of conversion, using Facebook and the other channels out there is still, largely, in its infancy. At least this is true for companies that cannot afford market analysis analytics out the wazoo.

Now that Mashable article mentioned up there, that was sponsored in a way by Blackberry and their SM tool Gist. Here’s an example of how fast the digital space “happens” to companies. While Blackberry reached out with initiatives such as the Mashable “ad” – leads and conversions for what amounts to an inferior product – these cannot be successful. Sure millions still use Blackberry, but unless the company hammers out a better mousetrap soon. Hey, and they are working on it, look at their new tablets. Now, think about your real estate leads, clients, your market, and the client value… are you going to lay down and die, or rationalize, just because you got behind?

Here’s where “conversions” get complicated in the online marketing world. The Internet is not some hokus pokus secret magic wand to guarantee your days selling whatever will be shorter. They may in fact be even longer, at least to start with. While some people contend there is no evidence to suggest social media can convert “users” into home buyers, new evidence is emerging. I will say this at this time, social media is nothing more or less than an interactive version of TV at the time soaps came out. Now.

Some would believe Forrester’s Nate Elliott and others are at play

To show how quickly things move in the online and mobile space, an associate and I wrote a piece for Search Engine Journal entitled “Industry Discussion: The True Nature of Social Media ROI” at the beginning of this year. The post was primarily focused on SM as it applies to travel, given that WIHP Hotels’ and much of our own focus is in travel. At the time, as you can tell even by the expert celebs we sourced for the article, ROI was a lot more sketchy a short time ago.

Forward to May, 2012, and this post by Harry Gold at ClickZ shows proof on the way. The real metrics of real estate leads on Facebook and elsewhere are in fact proving out SM’s viability, more and more. Socially-referred leads, Socially-referred revenue, and other terms like Media equivalent value – these will be your broker buzz words shortly. Or, your local competitor will have passed you and your new SUV by. I suggest you study Gold’s data closely. Also perhaps look into Wildfire Interactive (no they do not sponsor me). Without giving away a bunch of secrets, it seems clear a great many business people read mine or our network’s articles and studies assuming we are just opinionated, vested in SM working, or something.

Forrester Research, in their June study on SM ROI (PDF), studies the elements of real social graph import. The image below condenses what Nate Elliott (image above) and his colleagues suggest will help you in:

“…considering the benefits from as many perspectives as possible will help you avoid the narrow metrics that result in ineffective strategies, incomplete measurement, and incorrect business decisions.”

Four Perspectives Of A Social Media Marketing Balanced Scorecard – Courtesy Forrester

Factoring in such aspects as “risk management” (or as our PR firm calls it “crisis reputation management”",  and where we are now – seeing SM maturing into that “soap opera” ad and content channel I mentioned, and the keen observer can gain much. If I were to be blunt here, then I would just suggest business people not be “stupid” about a trend you cannot turn back. You should be asking, “what’s next” rather than piping failed ideas and rationalizations of your own existence. Sorry, this is a truth you will come to know, some reading this.

The companies measured and questioned for that Forrester report; Bazaarvoice, Best Buy, imc2,  Lithium Technologies, Razorfish, Toyota, and

Zappos.com, you may think they are wasting their time and money. Again, emulation may serve your business well. What? You think selling houses is different from selling cars? As a final note, I mentioned WIHP Hotels up there too. It may interest the reader to know that when Martin Soler and I wrote that piece for one of the world’s leading search engine publications, measuring hotel ROI on an ad channel was infant. My partner wrote the press release announcing for WIHP hotel owners being “guaranteed” an ROI of no less than 10x on investments via WIHP’s DirectPack platform.

Can anyone reading this say “what if“?

So much for “the hype” of social media marketing. Who says comments are insignificant?

 Social Media ROI image top – courtesy Business Insider’s event by the same name.

Image by Art Rock (Hennie)/flickr.com

ERA Real Estate has been around for 40 years, developing consumer-oriented products and services in the real estate industry.  The ERA network includes some 30,000 brokers and sales associates and approximately 2,400 offices throughout the United States and 35 countries and territories.

“As vacations wind down after Labor Day and people become more focused, the desire to be in a new home for the holidays is a historically strong driver of fall home sales,” said Charlie Young, president and CEO of ERA Real Estate.

The ERA survey reveals 40 percent of respondents like fall for homebuying because of the “back to school” and starting fresh mentality that hits when September and October come around. Twenty percent cite wanting to be in their new home in time for the holidays. And 10 percent want to take advantage of the tax benefit of buying and owning a home.

The biggest group of fall homebuyers are first-time homebuyers at 27 percent, according to the report. Twenty percent are move-up buyers. Some 17 percent are retirees or those downsizing. The remaining 36 percent is made up of investors, military relocations, vacation home buyers, and “other.”

Fall is also a good time from a buyer standpoint as many sellers want to try to sell by the end of the year. Also, sellers in colder climates generally want to sell before the cold weather and snow hit.

How the findings will affect what happens this fall remains to be seen.

The National Association of Realtors reports pending home sales in August 2012 declined after reaching a two-year peak. But the August figures are higher than August 2011.

Lawrence Yun , NAR chief economist, said some volatility can be expected in the monthly readings. “The performance in month-to-month contract signings has been uneven with ongoing shortages of lower priced inventory in much of the country, and across most price ranges in the West, but activity has remained at notably higher levels this year,” Yun said.

Michele Dawson is a freelance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona. She spent seven years as a newspaper reporter and has written for various magazines and web sites specializing in real estate and home improvement, including Realty Times, SmartHomeowner, California Builder, and the Sacramento Business Journal.

Is there only one, or more than one solution?

This latest news from Market Leader speaks of linking Internet Data Exchange (IDX) feeds that list some 1.6 million properties with selected agents within the company’s matrix (network) to take advantage of exclusive leads and customer relationship features. At least this is the report from Inman News we read. That article goes on to reflect however, a much bigger story, one of territorial end-fighting and splitting of hairs even.

The company that bought RealEstate.com versus the other side of the Internet sales aisle, and all those accustomed to MLS listings and the current online listing model on the other. At issue is basically the what the National Association of Realtors allows as far as these feeds are concerned. RealEstate.com basically forces the issue of “how” IDX listings get listed, with ads or without, with lead generation forms or without, and so on. More critically though, the fact that brokers cannot “opt out” of being listed on RealEstate.com as is the case with Trulia and Zillow, this is the real rub.

To break this all down, an agency that has listings in a particular MLS, Multiple Listing Service Property Information Network Inc. (MLSPIN) is the Inman use case, is forced to show their listing via RealEstate.com by virtue of being in the MLS basically. In a very real way what Market Leader accomplishes here is a sort of game changing control dynamic, one that actually polarizes the real estate pro market too.

It all boils down to a somewhat controversial bout between real estate franchisers, who won a bid to the NAR to display the IDX listings of affiliated brokerages that was later rescinded when complaints flourished, and brokerages like HomeServices of America Inc.  When all is said and done Market Leader, or any online real estate player, is in the game to push product. In the case of Market Leader, services like their websites for brokers, positioning and feedback from and on key sites like RealEstate.com, PPC campaigns, and other marketing offerings. Ian Morris’s (video above) company has just about every end covered when it comes to sales leads.

Whether or not agents, buyers, and sellers find Market Leader’s tactics with favor or not is not at issue for the moment, what seems more important is the pulling at straws that takes place within the industry. A technicality here, an uncrossed “t” there, when the housing market is still suffering its most crippling blow ever. One has to marvel at the big game being played for position. But then, that’s what business is about, right? One thing you have to give Market Leader a lot of credit for is bringing RealEstate.com down to the local level. Not many big time players have done this well.

More on real visibility as the story grows. Oh, and Market Leader, if you really want more solutions for leads… mail me.

RealEstate.com Atlanta site – Market Leader has done this right

Oh. One hint too, don’t profess Pinterest, G+, Twitter, Facebook or any expertise you are not entrenched in. Now Inman News? They have Pinterest down.

Welcome to Phoenix, or Mediocrity?

For the reader, our methodology here is no nonsense and simplified. Just like any home buyer or seller looking for info on the web, the most logical place will always be Google. Searching for keywords or phrases such as “homes in Phoenix” or “Phoenix real estate” mimics what your everyday buyer or seller might do. These searches, modified to exclude huge aggregator sites like Trulia and others, can really show what the local professionals are up to, at least online. So, without further explanation, let’s look at Phoenix’s top real estate gurus.

Phoenix Real Estate (by Phoenixhomes.com)

Just under the paid positioning of Trulia, Phoenix Real Estate sits at the top position for the search “Phoenix homes for sale.” About the best that can be said for Matt Pellerin’s website is that it is “adequate” for finding some houses in the area. As before, we tend to put some emphasis on social media engagement, site design and navigation, and whether or not the key Realtor shows an effort toward interacting and informing people. As you can see by the screen shot below, even searching for a home results in the visitor being asked to “opt in” for the lead.

For those unfamiliar, opting in means you give permission to be SPAMMED to pieces generally, even called via phone. So far, so bad, for Phoenix home search. (Note: no SM buttons of any kind, let along a prevalent pic of the Broker) RBiz rating of Phoenix Real Estate: 3 on a scale of 10.

Dorathey Duffield

Wow. If Phoenix Real Estate up there is woefully Web 1.0, this Realtor’s big move to take over the Internet for clients and is tantamount to Stone Age marketing madness. In cases like this, I hate to say my I am torn asunder between feeling bad for the agent, and wanting to get glossy photos up of the inconsistency.

This top ten Google SERP wanna be offers not only hard sales techniques like opt in cues, but less than admirable functionality. One thing is clear to this writer, Dorathey Duffield wants you to email or call her, it’s prompted at every turn. The image below of a property search says it all for me. Excuse the lack of SM presence, a one way conversation, even hard sell tactics, the hazy images of a house worth nearly a third of a million dollars? Rating: 2 of 10.

Stone House Realty

Justin A. Lombard should not have chosen a domain name like trust-in-justin.com, but other than this he has his two competitors up there beat hands down where online credibility is concerned. His website is nothing to write to Time Magazine over, it won’t make any web covers, but the Realtor has done some SEO, SM, and marketing classes somewhere. Or else is smart enough (not so cheap as to) to hire somebody who does have a clue. Sorry Justin, I can’t give a glowing review here, but you honestly did what was necessary.

Okay, Stone House does not have a massive engagement quotient, but what is displayed openly is the Broker’s email, picture, phone, and a little tiny “g +” at page top, indicating someone there understands SEO and the social trend. Stone House does venture into the “opt in” space where it seems appropriate, such as the testimonial pages as the company’s competitors do. The difference in this case being there are actual reviews of the services offered next to one call to action to get mail from the Realtor. No Twitter and Facbook, no valid link to the g + profile, an ugly site, and some other missing elements take Stone House’s ratings down tho. Rating: 5 of 10.

Historic Phoenix Dot Com?

If ever there were a smart move (I think) calling your real estate entity by a dual purpose name might be (or might have been) one of the slickest I’ve seen. The owners of Historic Phoenix, Don Mertes and Maureen Rooney, got themselves into the top ten search listings with a lot of content, and what looks like some SEO and linking juice. The site seems very new, Alexa only shows a brief history dating back to three months.

The nicest of the Phoenix real estate sites we visited today, and replete with pics of the principals, some decent tools, and a ton of resources. However, beyond a snappy and effective internal and external linking build (study link building and SEO), and some cool facts and figures about the surrounding Arizona architecture etc, “slick” is about what the online home searcher gets via this portal. Bottom line is, are the agents doing their best to sell and show? No social engagement for their clients, some info loosely scattered about the site, and a Yelp connection of little relevance (save some visibility), none of this spells “BROKER” for me. Of course, the agents are free to argue. Rating: 5 of 10.

Is this enough to sell? Or to make you want to buy or call?

The Drummond Group

Interestingly, or sadly perhaps, Phoenix’s real estate presence online is so poor as to have driven this writer to Zillow to find our next entry. The Drummond Group appears not in our Google SERPs, but at the top of the list of Phoenix Realtors on the Zillow Real Estate Agent Reviews & REALTORS®. Okay, after spitting and coughing like Daffy Duck over this dispicable happenstance, it matters not. Evaluating Ed Drummond’s digital presence for his constituents will do. Oh, but wait? Ed Drummond is all about commercial offerings. Or is he? The Zillow listing shows homes and review about buying homes, yet the company site offers industrial, land, office, and so on?

Wait, Ed has his Drummond Group at Capstone Realty identity on Facebook! But somehow all these presences rebuke the Google search, even the Zillow one? Confused? So am I. There’s a Capstone Realty site, an Ed Drummond one that is exactly the same with Ed’s domain, and at least one domain that no longer exits. While Ed Drummond does sure seem to get around, and his agency(s) show the earmarks of being successful (lots of employees) Ed himself is a bit hard to track down. I did manage to find one pic of him on the company Facebook, with Santa Claus no less. (Evidently he only shows up for Christmas?). Anyhow, Ed and his team will have to excuse me for A – having to hunt them down, and B – being very confused about their offerings for web searching real estate peeps. Rating (just cuz Ed is so tall) 4 of 10.

Summary Judgement: Pitiful

No doubt the reader (and some Phoenix Realtors) are suffering at this point. In all honesty it is no fun revealing such mediocrity, particularly for an area of the US one would think might recover sooner, rather than later. One thing is cemented with this latest review of digital Realty, not many agents spend even a thought considering how people on the web might engage with them.

Maybe all you iPhone toting people out there, you Facebook fans, had better get in your cars and drive to Arizona? Just look for the big ass sign that says; “Home For Sale” by the lazy agent too busy and important to do more than take your money.

Sorry, but this search is getting ridiculous. Next up Dallas.

Photo credit: Mediocrity image courtesy Andy Dean – Fotolia.com

Copyright Jason Lavengood via www.lavengoodcommercial.com

Indianapolis has a number of sporting attractions, including Indianapolis Motor Speedway, NCAA headquarters and Hall of Champions, the Indiana Pacers, Indianapolis Colts, and others. Many of those attractions are prominently on display in downtown Indianapolis for the Super Bowl, and the city as a whole will get exposure that could boost the housing market in the future.

Like many metropolitan areas in the United States, the Indy housing market has struggled since 2006. It is a buyer’s market with sales up from previous years (21,723 in 2011) but down 8.6 percent from 2009 (23,770).  In 2011, homes sold for 87.3 percent of the list price, and the average home stayed on the market for 9 to 12 months, as many sellers have been reluctant to “give away” their homes to buyers looking for competitive deals.

Like many cities, unemployment at 9 percent and rampant foreclosures continue to plague Indianapolis. The Super Bowl may help the city alleviate some of that burden as well, as the city adds more jobs and receives an economic boost from the big game. Ultimately, however, experts say it will still take time, and there is no magic cure, no matter how exciting the game turns out to be.

In October, single family home sales reached 493,140, and in November, they topped 503,570 units, an annual high, and the fifth consecutive month of home sales increases. Moreover, the median price for single-family detached homes in California rose to $280,960 in November, a one-percent increase from October but 5 percent lower than the price in November of 2010.

What does all of this mean for prospective buyers, homeowners looking to sell, and the real estate agents who represent them? According to LeFrancis Arnold, President of C.A.R., it means that the housing market may be getting stronger, which is “encouraging.”

“Despite the challenges the housing market has faced, sales are maintaining a pace that is just shy of normal levels, enabling both distressed and non-distressed properties to move and providing a tremendous opportunity for those who are looking to buy a home,” explained Arnold.

Some of the other interesting facts from the report are that interest rates averaged 3.99 percent in November of 2011, down from 4.3 percent in November 2010, and the average amount of time it took to sell a home in 2010 was 54.8 days, while that number increased to 56.6 days in November of 2011.

C.A.R. collected the data for its report from over 90 Realtor associations and multiple listing services (MLS) throughout the state of California. The California Association of Realtors is the largest of its kind in the United States, with a membership of over 155,000.

Birmingham real estate - showing resilience © Mike Kiev - Fotolia.com

Do the numbers calculate to a bright and rosy outcome? I suppose it depends upon your outlook and perhaps even your experience in the Birmingham market. The total inventory is down from last year, which could mean the market is leveling off. Sales of both new and existing homes were down in August, however the market is typically slower this time of the year so don’t jump to any conclusions with that one fact – the market is more complicated than simply following one or two trends.

The inventory of new homes in Birmingham is at an 8 month supply, and combined with a reduced sales price, the market doesn’t look that promising, but again, it’s important to look at the overall trend which takes into account data from many areas, including housing, economics, demographics, governmental involvement in the marketplace, and others.

The average days on market for new homes in Birmingham was 199 days, which is significantly better than last month’s at 222; days on market for used homes was just a bit longer at 149 compared to 145 in July.  This is an important detail for sellers in this market, as they need to rethink their sales price, especially in the historically slower seasons. Doing so just might ensure they sell their house, albeit for less than they would have hoped for.

Sales prices of sold homes are another telling indicator of the health or condition of a market, and Birmingham’s trend is definitely rising upward. The average sales price for new homes sold in August was up a bit – to $241,233 from $238,345, although the price for used homes sold was down a few hundred from $159,439 in July to $159,100 – hardly a blip in my estimation. A key factor to look at is that from the middle of 2009 going forward, the general trend is an upward one, which can certainly be a promising sign of market growth.

Source: Tom Brander

Syracuse is top for rental property investors, courtesy DenisTangneyJr - iStockPhoto

Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors is optimistic about the Syracuse market these days. Predicting an upward trend throughout 2012, Yun believes that certain changes in the lending industry could boost the market even more.

One factor that is inhibiting market growth is credit requirements. In an understandable, yet over-reactionary move, banks are being over-cautious in their lending practices. Yun predicts that a return to “normal” standards would improve home sales by as much as 15 to 20 percent.

“A huge volume of cash sales, supported by the recovery in the stock market, show that smart money is chasing real estate,” said Yun. “This implies that there could be a sizeable pent-up demand if mortgages become more readily accessible for qualified buyers. The problem isn’t with interest rates, but with the continuation of unnecessarily tight credit standards that are keeping many creditworthy buyers from getting a loan despite extraordinarily low default rates over the past two years.”

Historically, sales of existing homes have performed higher than they currently are, however Yun believes that sales will rise, albeit at an uneven pace. “If we just hold at the first-quarter sales pace of 5.1 million, sales this year would rise 4 percent, but the remainder of the year looks better,” said Yun. “We expect 5.3 million existing-home sales this year, up from 4.9 million in 2010, with additional gains in 2012 to about 5.6 million — that’s a sustainable level given the size of our population.”

HomeVestor’s Local Market Monitor seems to agree with Yun’s assessment of the Syracuse market, as they named it in their top 20 rental markets to invest in. According to HomeVestor, “The ranking is based on three-year forecasts of home prices (this is pretty much a wild card in this market) and the gross rents resulting in a risk-return premium which is then compared with the national average.”

All of the real estate data points to Syracuse as being a great market for investors, as there are many foreclosure deals to be had, and Syracuse is listed among the top affordability markets by the National Association of Homebuilders.