Basically this bill requires that prior to issuing, renewing or replacing a driver’s license, driving permit or identification card, that Oregon’s Driver and Motor Vehicles Services Division must ask license seekers for proof of U.S. citizenship or permanent legal status
According to property manager Clifford A. Hockley, President of Bluestone & Hockley Real Estate Services, some landlords are upset that this could lead to huge vacancies in their rental property. He believes that the vast majority of the illegal immigrants in this country are renters and if they can’t get a drivers license, they won’t be able to drive to work and get a job and therefore, these renters will move to another state where there are less restrictions and leave Oregon landords in the lurch.
Not sure what to make of this. I find it hard to defend the rights of those who are in this country illegally. Are landlords so desperate for renters that they would rather rent to criminals and illegal immigrants than have a vacancy? That just doesn’t seem like good business practice.
While reading Real Estate Webmasters forums, I came across a fellow named Ron Park from Tuscon who was enamoured with the Redfin site, so he hired a tech company in India to try to re-create Redfin’s mapping technology and cababilities. He wanted a Redfin clone for the Tuscon real estate market, and it’s unclear if he just wanted the mapping capabilities or if he was also going to copy their business model too, but he’s unhappy with the final product.
By hiring a discount off-shore company and Google maps instead of MS Virtual Earth, he got a pale imitation of the actual Redfin technology, and the map is slow and buggy.
It looks like, from his comments on the forums, that he paid about $10K for a site that probably would cost about 10 times that to develop, but now he wants to dispute his bill and he wants his money back.
By doing a little research he could have had an acceptable mapping feature to frame on his website using Real Bird, for $19 a month, that integrates listings from his own MLS. I use Real Tech and get an adequate mapping tool using Microsoft Virtual Earth and I pay $10 a month for that, and I’m able to put it on Seattle Dream Homes for a seamless home search. It even comes branded with my photo and contact information, and there are some great features that allow a shopper to save their favorites and forward those to me for future viewings, plus they can save their search criteria and have new listings forwarded to their in-box everyday.
The folks from India, taking the directive to make a Redfin clone seriously, even added a “Sweet Digs” section and a “Redfin Forums” feature. No Kelman-type PR master was included, however.
Google has taken the beta label off a project that is significantly younger than Gmail, which remains in beta. Google Website Optimizer has been available to AdWords customers for the past year, but now the company is making it available to anyone who wants to test out different web site layouts.
Basically, the tool lets you try out different designs on you web page to see which one performs best. Want to see which ad unit is more likely to get people to click? Want to see which RSS icon is more likely to get people to subscribe to your site’s feed? Google Website Optimizer will let you set up an experiment and track the results.
There’s also a new Google Website Optimizer blog that you can follow for news and tips related to the tool. Since I do my own SEO for my websites, I’m looking forward to fiddling around with this new tool.
A day doesn’t go by when I’m not contacted by a real estate agent or a new blogger who wants to exchange links. I even get requests to add a link by webmasters of sites that have nothing to do with real estate. Knowing how Google views such reciprocal links, I’m tempted to remove even my blogroll. At the very least, I’ll think twice about adding anyone else.
Be careful before exchanging links with anyone, and avoid it if possible. Make your content so compelling that people link to you, and keep your outgoing links, especially on your homepage of your static site, limited.
My main website is currently #1 in Google, in organic results, for the search terms “Seattle real estate for sale“, before Realtor.com, Trulia or any local real estate brokerage. It also is in the top 10 for “Seattle Homes”, “Seattle Homes for Sale” and “Seattle, Washington Real Estate”, and I try to update the site weekly. However, due to an old penalty, my site is practically non-existent in Yahoo. Though the penalty has been lifted, I’ve had a hard time getting anywhere or regaining my past placement.
Being penalized by Google for excessive and/or spammy reciprocal linking can take affect in several different ways. One of the most common ways is the -30 effect where your website is immediately dropped 30 ranking points. If you have experienced loss of rankings within Google and you have questionable spammy reciprocal links (especially Realtor to Realtor linking), you may be penalized. If you do believe you have been penalized, you will need to follow the Google reinclusion instructions after your site is cleaned up.
Just enter the market value of your current home and the location, along with 3 other comparable cities, and you can see what your home would sell for in those other places.
For instance, if you live in a $1M home in Seattle, that same home would cost $3,962,121.00 in Beverly Hills, but only $303,030.00 in Houston, TX.
HousingPANIC has come up with a list of nominees for most f*cked up builder, lender, real estate agent and others working in the monumental Real Estate Industrial Complex.
Sadly, I was not nominated in any of the categories.
But it’s not too late! I’ve never won anything in my life. Please help me fulfill a dream….
I wrote an article for this months issue of MAKE Magazine (http://www.makezine.com/) about folk artist Martin Sanchez and the environment he created out of found objects (including a beer-bottle chapel) and I’m going to be featuring some of those photos with commentary this Thursday 4/10 at See Sound Lounge on 1st and Blanchard in Belltown at 6pm.
Pecha Kucha Night was conceived in 2003 as a place for designers, architects and artists to meet, network, and show their work in public, and it has spread virally to over 100 cities across the world.
Give a mic to an architect or an artist and you may be trapped for hours. The key to Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each - giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.
Pecha Kucha (which is Japanese for the sound of conversation) has tapped into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown, without having to rent a gallery or chat up a magazine editor.
Artists and presenters for the evening are Marlow Harris, Alex Steffen, Cameron Hall, Sage Saskill, Elizabeth Buschmann, Karen Lorene, Jesse Harris, Dawn Clark, Ross Leventhal and Michael Franz Horner
It turns out that death by blogging is greatly exaggerated, but New York Times writer Matt Richtel is concerned that bloggers are often paid based on how much they write and whether anyone reads them. He likens this to a “sales commission,” a comparison that evokes Alec Baldwin chalking “ALWAYS BE CLOSING” onto a blackboard in the real estate movie version of Glengarry Glen Ross. (”First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”)
EPerks is still reeling from the bad publicity for paying bloggers to write about their company. (Even now when you Google Eperks, most of the entries are paid posts.)
Redfin continues to seek paid bloggers and is offering $40 a post.
PayPerPost is paying bloggers $28 this month to write about Renuzit Home Deodorizer.
Pursuant to the rules, NWMLS must publish Notices of Disciplinary Action taken against its members. Windermere, John L. Scott, Keller Williams, ReMax and other assorted companies were fined last month for behavior ranging from visiting a “By Appointment” listing without calling first (fine: $2,500), marketing a listing without inputting it into the MLS (fine: $3,000) to soliciting another Member’s listing (fine: $5,000).
But the largest fines last month were levied against Redfin, probably because this is not the first time they’ve been in violation of NWMLS rules.
To wit:
Company: Redfin Corp.
Designated Broker/Branch Manager: Kevin Broveleit
Agent: Kevin Broveleit
Rules Violated:
NWMLS Rule 27 (Republication of Client Handout and Public Open House Database),
Rule 28 (Subscribers “Framing” of Members’ Sites),
Rule 183 (Transmitting Proprietary NWMLS Information to Non-Members),
Rule 190 (Advertising Another Member’s Listings),
Rule 192(d) (Ownership of NWMLS’ Listing Photographs)
Summary of Complaint: Company advertised other members’ listings without their permission, republished data taken from NWMLS download in newsletter and blog, and disclosed address of listing input into NWMLS as an undisclosed address.
While reading 
