The Steelers Will Win The Super Bowl

Yeah, I am predicting the Steelers will manhandle the Cardinals. Why? Many reasons, but top reason is the Steelers crushing defense. Curt Warner and crew will not know how to deal with the pressure. Yes, Fitzgerald is a threat, but when Warner is pressed hard by the Pittsburgh defense, he will make bad decisions. He will have a hard time getting the ball into number 11’s hands.

The Super Bowl is like a national holiday at my house. The Celebration starts early and last all day. What will you do to celebrate the Super Bowl? And if you could care less about the Super Bowl, tell me why? Just Curious.

Defense wins Super Bowls:

You Tube Video Ranks #1 in Hours

I wrote a blog post a few days ago about Google indexing my blog posts within 15 or 20 minutes of publishing which is very exciting. Now it seems I’m getting Google love from my YouTube videos.

Here’s a prime example:

Yesterday I posted a property walk through Youtube video and within 2 hours it ranked number one in Google if you search by address: 5355 Medina Rd Woodland Hills, CA 91364

The Video is here:

See the Google results here.

I checked today and it’s ranked number 2 under a redfin.com listing 1 again! I’ll take that. The best part is I did no SEO work at all.

Today, I am going to start using http://www.tubemogul.com to see if I can really super charge my results.
I’ll keep you posted on my success.

Breaking The 2000 Follower Limit on Twitter

Yesterday I passed the 2000 following limit on twitter!! What’s interesting is I only have 1845 followers yet I am able to follow more than 2000 people. I had heard from so many different sources in order to follow more than 2000 people you had to have 2000 people or more following you. Not true.

So, I did a little research on Google and found many blogs talking about the “1,800 followers rule”, meaning once you hit 1,800 followers mark you can now follow 10% more than the previous 2000 limit. Not sure if this is true or not but it seems to hold true with my current situation.

I really don’t care about the rules and numbers of Twitter, I’m just glad I can follow more interesting people. Twitter has become an incredible tool for finding outstanding people and making valuable Business connections.

Follow me at http://twitter.com/ForeclosureData

We Are Nowhere Near The Bottom

The Benchmark mortgage blog posted a blog post today asking the following question “Did we just see the first two sign of a housing recovery?” They base this on recent numbers from December showing increased sales and dropping inventory.

I tried to leave a comment but was unable so I will post my comment on my blog.

In my opinion, you are missing two important factors that will indicate a housing recovery. First, the economy is shedding 500,000 jobs a month which could equal 10% unemployment mid this year. With so many people losing their jobs and wages falling, there are less homebuyers on the market. This will help push inventory higher not lower.

Second, there is a massive reset of “pick payment” and “ALT-A loans” sent to re-adjust starting Q1 2009. This reset will make the subprime debacle look like child’s play.

This new wave of re-sets will lead to a massive new number of short sales and foreclosures. Dumping millions of more homes on to the market and increasing inventory to the highest levels we’ve seen in modern history. In this scenario supply will far exceed demand.

We are nowhere near the bottom of the housing market. The true indicator of a housing recovery is not inventory but jobs. Once we see two or three quarters of strong drop job growth then we can start to talk about a recovery. Just my two cents.

CNNs Job Loss List for 2009

CNN is keeping a company by company tally of the job cuts in 2009. You can see the list here. Their list shows 207,120 jobs eliminated so far in 2009.

U.S. Jobless Rate Explodes

Caterpillar announces fourth quarter profits drop by 32%. Caterpillar announces it will slash 20,000 jobs.

Sprint Nextel announced they will emanate 8000 jobs in the first quarter of 2009. Job cuts will affect every level of the company.

Home Depot to cut 7,000 jobs which represents 2% of its workforce. Home Depot also announced they will shut down their Expo division.

Texas Instruments reported a large profit drop which led to the announcement it will cut 3400 jobs

IBM will cut at least 20,800 jobs. This announcement comes just a few days after Microsoft announced they will be eliminating 5000 jobs.

Layoffs are coming from every sector of the economy, which is troubling because it represents a wide and deep recession. It is now expected January will see another 500,000 jobs evaporate.

On a side note

Falling home prices in December pushed existing home sales up by 6.5%. Bargain hunters snapped up foreclosures, taking advantage of the largest price decline in 70 years. 45% of the homes sold in December consider distress sales, either short sales or foreclosures.

Twitter Drops Spammers

On January 19, 2009 Twitter did its best to get rid of inactive accounts and spammers. At the time, my Twitter account (ForeclosureData) showed I had approximately 1660+ followers. Within about a half-hour I lost about 30 followers. I quickly checked the Twitter timeline and found this was a universal problem, so wasn’t something I said. In the picture below, the red arrow indicates a plateau in my daily increase, which is where Twitter did its update.

Twitter periodically cleans house, resulting in a drop in followers. I’m totally okay with this. I actually encourage this behavior from twitter. The more they can clean up the bad stuff the better the experience will be for people who are using twitter for legitimate means.

Oftentimes I have people follow me who are clearly spammers or someone impersonating another Internet personalities or celebrities. I generally follow anyone back who follows me. However, there are some exceptions.

Reasons not to follow
• If you’re following the max of 2000 people and no one is following you back
• You have not added a picture or logo, updated your Bio, and have no URL
• If you say something offensive to me, racist, sexist, etc.
• If you have a bunch “_”is in your username. Example__tiger-words___
• Clearly impersonating a celebrity

Other than that, I pretty much follow anyone as long as they have something interesting to say. Twitter has been an amazing tool for my business, as I’ve noted in a previous post, I continue to find amazing energetic and intelligent people through twitter. So if you’re in the real estate business or not, if you’re a social media expert or not, if you love sports or not, enjoy great food and wine or not, let’s connect via Twitter.

A Smooth Transition of Power

I’m so impressed with the smooth transition of power from George W. Bush to Barack H. Obama. We truly live in a wonderful country where we can have so many different opinions, political spectrums and yet at the end of the day when a new president takes office there is a spirit of cooperation and goodwill.

This truly is a wonderful country.

Free Stuff on Inauguration Day

Now that’ll Barak Obama, has been sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America, let’s get down to some serious business.

Okay, I have put together a list of free or discounted stuff you can get today in honor of Inauguration day.

Dunkin donuts
Dunkin donuts are selling a stars and stripes donut for $.44 in the DC area. Most of us will not be able to get our hands on these special donuts but those in the DC area will enjoy.

Krispy Kreme
Krispy Kreme has outdone Dunkin’ Donuts by giving away a free doughnut anywhere in the United States on Inauguration day

Starbucks
If you pledge to five hours of community service you can get a free cup of coffee today at Starbucks. This is sponsored by the hands on network.

Bakers square
Beginning January 21 get a free slice of pie with any purchase in honor Inauguration Day

California tortilla
Get a free taco on January 20

Free cosmetics
At any Macy’s, Dillard’s, Sak’s you can receive free to cosmetics

New Yorker Magazine
New Yorker Magazine is giving away a free copy of the January 26th edition if you register on their site. Registration is free.

This is pretty much all the free stuff I have been able to find on inauguration day. Nothing excites me honestly, but if anyone else has found a great free deal or something discounted please let me know and I will post it on the blog.

President Barak Obama Makes History

(Photo:Ozier Muhammad/ NY Times)

Today will be a historic day regardless of your political affiliation. Will it be over the top? Probably? Will the national media play up this day? Most likely. But this does not down play the magnitude of what this day will represent in American History for generations to come.

Yesterday we marked the 80th Birthday of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and today we see many of his dreams unfold in front of us with the inauguration of President Barak Obama as our 44th U.S. President.

I hope as a country we can pull together behind this President and attack the financial instabilities we as a nation face. I hope we can have a unified front against the many wars we are fight around the globe. We as a nation should give this new President our support, as we did George Bush after the attacks on 911. Republicans and Democrats alike.

It is fine to disagree, a healthy debate is what creates great ideas in this country. You don’t have to like Obama but let’s give him a chance to govern and see what he can do as our leader.

As Americans we should be proud of our nation. I will spend the day enjoying time with my family. Maybe take my daughter to the park.

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