Rate A Home Blog

Nature Reading

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:59:07 -0500

It's been awhile since I posted on Active Rain. Hello to all my friends.

I wanted to tip my hat to Joyce Ward, in her first publication of a children's book. Joyce is a mother, grandmother and a true Nature lover. Her gift to her grandchildren was a lasting memory that she wanted all parents and grandparents to have the same opportunity to provide to their children and grandchildren. Joyce wrote a book about a true experience she had with a little fellow called a Bob White, while visiting her mother.

The book is easy reading, filled with great illustrations and educational, that makes a great gift. The inside cover provides an area that allows the person gifting to personally sign the book to the receiver. Would make a great gift for clients children or your waiting room.

You can visit her web site at www.naturereading.com

Congratulations Joyce, you did a great job while providing a neat educational gift for our own grand kids!

Record for the shortest blog ever is posted on Active Rain! See it here.

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:30:59 -0500

If you think your buyers aren't looking for Walk Through Check Lists THINK AGAIN!

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:31:32 -0500

Do you see these types of reactions when your buyers are touring homes? Frustrated, confused, ready to pull their hair out? Ready to pull your hair out?

Buyer's and Renters are touring more property these days then ever before. If you don't think they are looking for a system to stay organized and keep track of the properties they tour think again.

Rate A Home for the first 5 days has 76.6% of our hits coming from "Walk through Check Lists". Buyer's and Renter's are searching for the tools to help them make a better choice of the place they will call "Home." Are you providing this service to your client?

If you visit Google and enter Walk through Check List in the search, you will see that we are top of the list, page one with the information we provide to the agent for the buyer. The Check List is an excellent service to provide your buyers, plus it will save you un-needed return trips to refresh the memories, thereby saving you not only time, but more importantly fuel expense.

Real Estate is a service industry, why not take it a step further and provide the services buyers are searching for? When I work with a buyer, I'll fill the check list out while they buyer tours the home, then provide the completed check list after the tour. Your Logo and Name appears on each check list as a continued marketing piece. Think your buyer won't brag up the special service you provided to their friends and family?

Give it a try, you might find out what you have been missing as the final piece of the housing puzzle.

$$$ HOW TO $$$ Adding the Free Lead Generating Wish List program to your Blog page on Active Rain.

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:00:24 -0500

The LEAD GENERATING WISH LIST can now be added for FREE to your Web Site or Blog page on Active Rain. This is not your "Typical" Lead Generator. Your site produces the lead, you are the only one that receives the lead, and there are no fees involved at all.

If you look on the right side of this blog page you will notice the hyperlink that reads "CLICK HERE TO CREATE YOUR DREAM HOME............. FREE Online Wish Lists streamline your Home search. Wish Lists for Existing or New Construction Homes and Condominiums (High Rise Included) and Rental Dwellings."

A potential buyer completes a Wish List for their existing or (Builders or Agents selling NEW HOMES or CONDOS, NOTE) new construction home, condo or rental dwelling search from your link. Any Wish List completed from your personal blog page or web site generates a copy of the buyers Wish List into your e-mail box. Only you and the buyer will receive the Wish List completed from your site. (Rate A Home or any other competing Professional doesn't receive a copy of the Wish List.)The Wish List works excellent as a service to your clients. Agents, Builders, Mortgage Brokers, Home Stagers, or anyone in the Real Estate Profession can utilize this great tool.

Please feel free to test the wish list from my blog page. In the buyers name insert "TEST" then enter your e-mail address as if you are the buyer. Check only the items your wish to have as a feature to your "Test" sample home. Only the items checked appear on the wish list that will be e-mailed to you. Only Rate A Home's logo will appear on the wish list completed from our site, any wish list completed from your site will include your logo if you choose to upload it into the code. (Below). If you have a high spam setting on your e-mail, enter wishlist@rateahome.com as mail you are willing to accept.

Even if the buyer isn't ready to purchase today, your name and logo appears on each Wish List completed from your site for continued marketing. See sample below of Todd Piernatoni's logo. Todd has the wish list program on his web site, and gave us permission for anyone to "Test" from his site as well. Click here to visit Todd's web site.

Please Visit Us at www.rateahome.com

Wish List:
First Name:	Active Rain
Last Name:	Test
Address:	#1 Best Real Estate Forum
City:	Seattle
State:	WA
Zip:	11111
Country:	USA

The Wish List goes on to display the buyers exact wants and needs for their home search all generated on-line.

***************************************************************************************

Agents, Mortgage Brokers, Builders, Etc. may want to display the link similar to Spring Developments on Active Rain.

Clarence Hebenstreit
Lansing, MI
More about me...
Spring Dev Co

Office Phone: (517) 322-3800
Email Me

CLICK HERE to CREATE YOUR DREAM HOME - Wish List

***************************************************************************************

Lew Corcoran - Amerisave Mortgage Corp.

Wish List of What You Want in Your Next Home

***************************************************************************************

HOW TO ADD THE FREE LEAD GENERATING WISH LIST PROGRAM TO ACTIVE RAIN BLOG PAGE OR WEB SITES:

First you will have to visit http://www.rateahome.com/Documents/AddLink.aspx and go to "WISH LIST - LINKING INSTRUCTIONS" to create your personal information code.

The code you generate will look similar to this example:<ahref="http://www.rateahome.com/Documents/Wishlist.aspx?email=youremailaddress@abc123.com">Click here to fill out a Wish List</a>

To add the wish list you have to go to your home profile page, click on "My Settings" and copy and paste the personal information code from http://www.rateahome.com/Documents/AddLink.aspx into "Blog Description"

Once the code is pasted into "Blog Description" you can change the wording to display on your Blog Page by eliminating the Click here to fill out a Wish List. (See bold print in example below) and inserting your choice of words to display on your blog page. Spring Development inserted CLICK HERE to CREATE YOUR DREAM HOME - Wish List. (DO NOT REMOVE THE > < ON EACH SIDE OF THE TEXT.)

<ahref="http://www.rateahome.com/Documents/Wishlist.aspx?email=youremailaddress@abc123.com">Click here to fill out a Wish List</a>

Before you close out of the "My Settings" page, you must click on "Update" to save your blog settings. Your Lead Generating Wish List will now display on the "My Blog" page.

The Lead Generating Wish List Program is compliments of Rate A Home.

Find the Active Rain Member (JEREMY BLANTON) Rainers, can you find yourself on the Wall of Fame photos? Take some time to Play in The Rain!

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:56:19 -0600

Here's a game to take your mind off of work for a bit. The object is to locate the person featured in the photo's below. Plus it will help everyone get familiarized with the featured Active Rain Member.

Use a second hand or timer before starting your search and post your time result in the comments section. We'll see who has the quickest eye on Active Rain. I will change the featured Active Rain Member periodically to present you with a new challenge.

Challenge for 07.09.08: Where is Jeremy Blanton? Jeremy is a REALTOR® from Myrtle Beach, SC. He's also a new daddy!

Start your time as soon as you are familiar with the featured members photo. (If you are unfamiliar with the featured member, simply click on the name and check out the photo along with their profile) To determine if you are correct, click on the featured members photo.

The Wall of Fame photo's are the members of the ThemThem Group. Join us and we'll add your mug shot.

If you see one of these, it means one of our Group members has changed their profile photo since it was posted here.

It's VIII VIII MMVIII the day of Good Luck

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:28:52 -0500

Today is 08.08.08 (2008) considered the date of good luck. It's reported that there will be over 9000 weddings in China alone today, with the belief that this is the luckiest day in history.

I'm wishing everyone a lucky day. Believe in luck or not, sometimes different things happen in one's life that has to be attributed to luck.

How about that person who has a 1 in 175,711,536 chance of winning the Lotto and they do. But then we hear about the same person who wins the Lotto twice, the odds are huge. Lucky?

Now take the agent in our office who seems to be the lucky one on floor time when a visitor walks in and is looking to relocate to your city. The buyer is looking to purchase a $500,000.00 house today. Their home is sold and cash in hand. Lucky?

The person who knows how to enjoy life, embrace it, takes in the beauty that has been bestowed upon us. Is that considered Lucky? Maybe, but we all have the opportunity to be who we are. Positive, funky, down, up, happy, sad, creative, out going, successful. I'd say we are Lucky to have these choices.

I feel I'm lucky to have found the special person in my life that I call my Wife (sometimes I call her My Bride). Lucky? Yes, and blessed.

VIII VIII MMVIII the day of Good Luck and I wish you the best! But in reality, every day can be your lucky day if you have life, love and laughter.

Carpe Diem, every day!

Anna Wilson is the 100,000th Member on Active Rain

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:50:14 -0500

Anna Wilson is officially the 100,000th member to our Active Rain Family. Congratulation Anna!

Anna is with W.E Advertise they are dedicated to bringing affordable advertising to people and businesses at a fraction of the cost of traditional avenues. W.E. offers you fresh advertising with a more personal approach.

Please take the time to welcome Anna to the Active Rain Family, and the ThemThem Group.

I'm honored to have Anna as part of our Group and a member of the AR Family.

Ladies, think you are taking a "hit" in your business, nothing like this!

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:01:39 -0500

We had a friend visit us for the weekend and she was so excited that one of her employees was headed off to the 2008 National Football Championships in Memphis, Tennessee this coming weekend. No biggie I thought, then it hit me "National Football Championship", how, what, who? Football is finished for a bit, right, maybe I lost a few months somewhere along the way?

Our friend went on to explain that her employee is a player for the West Michigan Mayhem.

OK, um, never heard of the team. Then she said it's an all female team, full tackle, what? And to top it off she explained how the Team is 11-0 in the Women's Football Association.

Now, I'm stumped, where have I been, stuck in The Rain, nah!

Introducing the West Michigan Mayhem. I wish them the best in their National Play-off against the H-Town (Houston) Cyclones, (10-1) kick-off is at 7:05pm on Saturday, July 26th. Should be a great game, The Mayhem beat the Philadelphia Phoenix Team and The Cyclone won over the Los Angeles Amazons to advance to the National Finals.

Please take the time to visit the West Michigan Mayhem web site to see more photo's, stats and information.

Congrats to both Teams and best of luck to each of you.

End of the 2008 Season Stats (Not including Play-offs) from the NWFA (Did you know you had a Team in your area? I didn't)

South - West Division

North - Central Division

	W	L	T	PF	PA
Columbus Comets	6	2	0	358	90
Cleveland Fusion	5	3	0	112	75
Erie Illusion	4	4	0	100	138
West Virginia Wonders	0	8	0	0	401

North - North Division

	W	L	T	PF	PA
West Michigan Mayhem	8	0	0	378	40
Minnesota Vixen	6	2	0	263	78
Tree Town	2	6	0	14	255

North - Midwest Division

	W	L	T	PF	PA
Fort Wayne Flash	5	3	0	299	40
Indianapolis Chaos	1	7	0	26	261
Dayton Diamonds	1	7	0	26	406

North - Northeast Division

	W	L	T	PF	PA
New York Nemesis	8	0	0	319	52
The Connecticut Crush	3	5	0	173	141
Maine Freeze	0	6	0	8	254

North - East Division

	W	L	T	PF	PA
Philadelphia Phoenix	8	0	0	264	8
New Jersey Titans	3	5	0	158	167
Baltimore Burn	2	6	0	116	304

	W	L	T	PF	PA
Los Angeles Amazons	8	0	0	361	34
Phoenix Prowlers	5	3	0	282	138
Modesto Magic	1	5	0	20	231
Tucson Wildfire	0	6	0	20	280

South - Central Division

	W	L	T	PF	PA
H-Town Texas Cyclones	7	1	0	266	82
Oklahoma City Lightning	6	2	0	223	83
Austin Outlaws	5	3	0	229	120
North Texas Rage	1	6	1	66	243

South - Southeast Division

	W	L	T	PF	PA
Pensacola Power	6	2	0	280	154
New Orleans Blaze	5	3	0	169	129
Gulf Coast Herricanes	2	6	0	118	240
Emerald Coast Barracudas	0	8	0	102	342

South - Midwest Division

	W	L	T	PF	PA
St. Louis Slam	7	0	0	239	46
Memphis Belles	3	4	1	176	182
Kansas City Storm	1	7	0	20	253

South - East Division

	W	L	T	PF	PA
Kentucky Karma	6	2	0	263	86
Chattanooga Locomotion	5	2	0	169	49
Cincinnati Sizzle	4	4	0	212	169
Alabama Renegades	2	6	0	152	274

Saugatuck, Michigan's Venetian Festival is this weekend, come on over.

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:36:09 -0500

The 2008 Saugatuck Venetian Festival kicks off on Friday the 25th and runs through Sunday the 27th. (Visit the official Festival web site to view more photos and information)

A weekend of fun and festivities is in store for the visitors to enjoy. The weatherman is calling for pleasant weather, lets hope he's right.

A boat isn't required as many of the activities are downtown, but if you have a boat bring it along and enjoy the beautiful Kalamazoo River that leads to Lake Michigan only minutes away.

Party in town or party in The Cove.

Fireworks, fun, food and music await you.

2008 Schedule of Events

Friday, July 25^th 2008 Coghlin Park

(Located at corner of Culver & Griffith)

7PM - 12:00PM Kickoff Celebration

Under the tent...Live entertainment by "the Shirey Brothers"
Beer, Wine, Food, Fun, and Free Admission

Saturday, July 26^th 2008

10:00 AM Art Fair in Downtown Saugatuck

11:00 AM Chicken BBQ at Wilkins Hardware

12:00 PM Dinghy Poker Run Starts at Coghlin Park

3:00 - 5:00 PM Kids Fun Area in Cooks Park

Moon Walk, Face Painting, Snow Cones, Craft Tent, and more fun for the kids.

6:00 - 9:00 PM Live Music Concert

Gazebo at Wicks Park

9:00 PM Venetian Boat Parade This Year's Theme "Movies"

10:00 PM Venetian Festival Fireworks

Over Lake Kalamazoo

Sunday, July 27^th 2008

11:00 AM - 1:00 PM Awards Brunch at Coral Gables
Tickets Available at the Door

9:00 AM - 4:00 PM Classic Old Boat Show at
Dinghy Dock area in Coghlin Park

Todays the Day, 100,000 Members in Active Rain, YeeHaa (Its OFFICIAL)

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:21:28 -0500

Today is the day that Active Rain tops the 100,000 members mark.

A big ThemThem to the Active Rain Team and all the members in helping this network be the best it can be.

I have watched the Members number grow daily and to see it go to the 6 digit number is going to be exciting and rewarding. Because the members are calculated automatically towards the end of the day we will have to watch the new members section, currently it puts membership at 99,952. So within a few hours the 100,000th member should arrive.

Please join me in Congratulating the Team! WTG, Guys and Gals and Thank you for Raining on us, for Free.

Duane

Real-Estate Professionals (Non-Members), please join us on Active Rain and see what you have been missing. You are officially invited.

Scared (for a better use of words) Crapless.

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:48:01 -0500

I joined The Rain on October 04, 2007 and shyly surfed the site for the first 10 days. No comments, no posts, in fact I hardly understood the concept of "Blogging." Blogging, it's not even in the spell check system. How important can it be if it hasn't made the spell check system? (hint, hint Active Rain Team). I thought what the heck, I'll look into it now that I'm here.

My first post was on October 14, 2007. Nervous, yep, after seeing the post that some of the seasoned (OK, old timers) Rainer's were posting.

But, what to write? Would I get comments? Will I make a mockery of myself? What would a Blog do for me? Why do I want to subject myself to these dreadful thoughts?

I found a description of What a Blog is by Mike Tyler, I feel he said it well.

Mike wrote: What is blogging?
"Simply put, it's a daily posting of someones thoughts on a web page. Postings are like small articles from the Blog's author. The subject matter of these postings is as varied as human beings themselves. Some are trivial - some of more substance."

I wrote that first post and reluctantly pressed the submit button, boom, there was my writing out there for the world to see, yow. Then I sat back and watched for two days while the comments rolled in, wow, three total. Hey, what about these old timers seasoned Rainers who were getting 50-60 comments per post, what did I do wrong? Maybe no photo's, OK I added one, hhhmmm, no additional comments.

So, on October 16th I tried another, wow, 15 minutes later my first comment, hey this is much better. Of course that was the only one I received, dang. Now I'm losing my will to be a Blogger of the World.

Now it's October 17th, and another shot at stardom, my post goes live and a day later, no comments, I could hear in my head the little sound when Pac-Man gets gobbled up and he disappears. Failed, washed up, done, gone. So desperate I tried to kick start the post myself, naughty me. Nope that didn't work either.

Not ready to give up, I kept posting to try to figure out the secret in The Rain. I adopted the concept of acknowledging the comments (an important etiquette of Blogging) which helped keep the posts alive and build camaraderie with the Rainers.

Finally on November 12, I wrote a simple fun non-business post and yeehaa I went into double digit comments, bingo! I found the secret, off to my next post now that I know what it takes. You guessed it, the next post netted one comment, shoulders drooped again and chest dropped back to my waist. Now that I look at these past posts, I made some Newbie mistakes.

Lack of Photos
Titles that didn't grab the readers attention
Not acknowledging Comments
Not asking for help or input
Not being "Active" in The Rain
Not visiting and commenting on other members posts right away (Networking)
Not reading the many helpful posts provided by the Active Rain Staff (see the new Group Help/FAQ) and members (see the Active Rain Newbies Group)
Not submitting my posts to certain Groups that the post met the Guidelines

Today, I have found the importance of being "Active" in The Rain. The site name says it all and the Newbie who gets involved from the very beginning will find that this "Blogging" thing can be phenomenal.

On a side major note, I wanted to let you know how helpful the old timers seasoned members and the Active Rain Team is, here in The Rain. Drop a line to any member and 9 times out of 10 you will get a helpful answer to your question or at least you will be pointed in the right direction. Or you can go at it like I did and be the guy who doesn't ask for directions and head down a few wrong roads.

It's up to you to light the World on fire. Don't expect to be a super-star from the get go. We all had to crawl before we could walk, and blogging is much the same way.

Don't get discouraged, we all started out as Newbies. Even the well seasoned member is learning every day. Ask those questions you have, put it in a post to get different input. Nobody is going to look at a question as being stuppid stupid. Get rid of the pride and ask away.

You will find The Rain, to be a educating, informative and a fun part of your business. Plus, the family and friends across the nation you will acquire as you get involved will surprise you, it did me.

So, dive in and take a refreshing swim in The Rain. It will remove the feeling of the title of this post.

Have Fun and Welcome to the Active Rain Family!

Anyone involved in the Real-Estate Industry is invited to join Active Rain.

Photo of The Original Computer, You Gotta Check this out

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:05:29 -0500

We all started out with these computers as early as Kindergarten.

The #2 was our choice and yellow was the color.

They were affordable and a necessity to make it through school.

All mathematicians were encouraged to use them.

The negative was, we could poke our eyes out.

Break downs didn't mean we had to ship them off to a specialist, we simply asked Mom to go to the 5&10 store and pick up another.

They could be thrown away with no loss of information.

If someone would steal it, bummer, but they didn't get all our of personal information.

You could chew on them and not worry about electrocution.

The cost was less then a nickle.

The delete button was simple to use, we turned it upside down. Can't do that with the computers of today.

When we moved up in the world we went to the Pen, than White Out.

How things have changed, I can't recall the last time I used the original computer.

Thank goodness some times for technology, until we have a break down or the Internet is moving slow. Gosh, to think about it, I think were being controlled by these things!

The winner of the latest Poll on "Who is your favorite Active Rain Blogger?"

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:55:02 -0500

Mr. Jason Crouch has been crowned the "Favorite Active Rain Blogger" by 36% of the voters.

Followed closely behind by Sir Brad Andersohn netting 27% of the votes.

And Lady Donna Harris with 14% of the votes.

Congratulations to each of you, and all the members who were on the Favorite Bloggers, voting Poll. You are all winners in my eyes!

Thank you to all the members who took the time to vote.

This Poll has been closed and a new poll is open on the right side of this blog page. Please take the time to vote.

Active Rain has launched the new Outside Blog option, the question this week is "Have You Set Up an Active Rain OUTSIDE BLOG"? Please take the time to complete the poll.

Thanks again and have a great day in The Rain,

Duane

BLOG! Did I just swear?

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:01:00 -0500

Hey, you can stick it in your BLOG!

Go ahead and BLOG yourself!

When I suggest to a Real Estate Professional to join Active Rain and start networking and blogging. You would think I said the nastiest word I have in my vocabulary. People almost start to hyperventilate at the word BLOG. What the BLOG did you just say?

It's a scary word, BLOG, but is it? Why do so many fear the word. OK, I agree, the word BLOG has not made the spell check dictionary as of yet (Hint, Hint Active Rain Team) as most swear words don't, but it's not a naughty word.

Blogging is so simple, it's a marketing tool. Marketingterms.com describes BLOG as:

"BLOG"

Definition

"A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links."

Information

"A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.

People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems, most notably Blogger at blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process.

Blogs are alternatively called web logs or weblogs. However, "blog" seems less likely to cause confusion, as "web log" can also mean a server's log files."

Many of us have kept diaries throughout our lives, A BLOG is your daily business diary. Do you keep records for taxes? Why? Because you have to, or is it so exciting that you want to? The difference, blogging is fun and can help you make money, get your name, business, products and listings out to the public and allows you to be a marketing guru at no cost!

So if you think that BLOG is a dirty word, and are avoiding getting involved because you are scared, your heading the wrong way. Blogging is here for the Real Estate Professional, don't be afraid just dive in. Sitting on the sidelines and watching the Blog World pass you by will gain you nothing.

Please take that first important step and join the great Active Rain Real Estate Network.

With over 97,000 helpful members to help guide you, the word BLOG will no longer be a dirty word to you.

A day without blogging is like a day without business. Think about it. Can you afford to miss this new way of doing business?

Fireworks over Saugatuck Harbor

* Rate A Home (Rate A Home) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 08:04:40 -0500

Ted Swoboda of Swoboda Images did it again. He climbed to the top of Mt. Baldy over looking the beautiful town of Saugatuck, Michigan.

Perched high above the harbor, Ted snapped some wonderful images of this years fireworks.

Saugatuck has three fireworks displays throughout the year and Ted is over gracious enough to send these photos to his friends. (Glad I'm one of them.)

My bride and I enjoyed the fireworks from ground level at the harbors edge, it was an awesome display once again.

Take the time to visit Ted's web site for local photos, he does a fantastic job. Thanks again Ted.