Eau Claire Wisconsin Real Estate Blog: January 2009
Eau Claire Wisconsin Real Estate Agent Realtor Shane O'Gorman--Chippewa Valley Blog Homes: The Real State of Real Estate in Eau Claire Wisconsin, Altoona, Chippewa Falls & the Valley.
Well
this guy should know
how to do what everyone wants to attain, the holy grail of Twitter,
the cult leader or Kool-Aid pourer. Whatever you want to call it, its
what everyone seems to want and hes the one who did it. The only
person with more followers than him is Barack Obama if I am not
mistaken and that might be a hard act to top.
Who
is he?
Kevin
Rose – Founder of
Digg
I
am not going to copy or
attempt to paraphrase what he said but you can check
out this article here. It just came out today so this is
fresh
information and something that you probably might want to do.
Also
if you notice the end
of his article he follows his own advice... maybe hes making for the
top after this article?
Searching
for a New Home -
Eau Claire Real Estate Advice
In my last post
I discussed the
first step in buying a home in Eau Claire Wisconsin or the
surrounding area, for first time home buyers. But really the advice
is true for anyone looking to buy a home. But once you know a good
price range to start looking, how do you start?
Well
almost any site offers a search but how can you know for sure that it
has all the available properties? Well certain sites are directly
linked to our MLS system but many are not. That's why I always
recommend that you use the search on my website. I am sure that many
area websites offer this basic feature. But the problem is always how
agents enter the information. Because of the way our MLS is set up we
are only allowed to enter in one location. Our MLS has different
locations for instance Eau Claire is divided into areas 1-3 which are
south side, west and north. Then area 5 which is Eau Claire schools
but more on the outskirts of town. Then area 7 for Eau Claire county
but not in Eau Claire schools. Confused? The problem is how do you
decide where a house is exactly? If its on the south side of town but
near Lowes Creek is that out or in town?
Even more
confusing can be the Fall
Creek area. Homes can be in Eau Claire or Chippewa County, Altoona,
Fall Creek or anywhere in between. You can't just look for Fall Creek
because some might be near Fall Creek but be in any of these school
districts.
This is why its
important to have an
expert on your side who knows how to search for homes accurately. It
takes a lot of experience and a lot of computer training. It is very
easy for an agent to overlook certain homes if you are not very
careful with how you manipulate the data. Being off by one dollar can
be the difference between whether or not you even see a home in your
searching.
So why not use
me as your guide? I am
resourceful and consider myself an expert when it comes to computers.
Here is what I
can do for you:
Take time to thoroughly explain the
entire buying process
Answer any questions you might have
about buying a home
Make a comprehensive list of every
single home that fits the criteria you set
Set you up for an automated search
based on your criteria
Receive emails the instant matching
homes come on the market
Be in the know when homes are listed in
our MLS
So now that we
have a list of homes
that might work for you what's next?
Let's
take a look inside of them!
If
you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to
comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this
story flag it for a feature!
If
you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call
715-894-1001today
or send me an
email.
Eau
Claire Real Estate Advice - First
Time Home Buyers
When I get
approached by potential
clients about buying a
home in the Eau Claire area the first question
is almost always, “How do we get started” As many
times as this
question is varied my answer never does. I know the overwhelming
feeling is you want to get out and start looking at houses. I always
feel bad when my answer is so much more boring.
The
first step is going to a lender.
But why?
Well they can
help with a variety of
things that we need to know before we can start looking. First they
can tell you if you can get a loan or not. As much as I would love to
get you a house, if you can't afford it financially then I don't want
to see you in trouble this way. They can also tell you what price
range will work for you as well. They can show you a good range of
what you can afford. You don't want to buy into a house that could
put you on the edge. We don't want you to miss any payments, buying a
house is a wise financial decision if you do it right. You can build
up your credit rating at the same time you build up equity in your
home. It can be the best financial investment you make in your entire
lifetime and thats why I always stress that we do it right.
So yes I am
going to ask you to take a
couple of hours out of your time and go see a professional lender but
it is so important. I promise as soon as this step is ready we can
sit down and begin the next step, searching for a home.
If
you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to
comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this
story flag it for a feature!
If
you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call
715-894-1001today
or send me an
email.
I
have reported on this virus a few times and with good reason, its a
doozy. When I first read an article about it I thought it was
appropriate to send the word out. But then MSNBC came out with their
own report that basically said there is nothing to worry about. Well
like I said then, if you aren't in the tech industry maybe you should
stick to reporting on what the tech industry is doing rather than
trying to provide technical advice to your readers. They insisted
their was nothing to worry about with this virus and called it a dud
basically.
Apparently
Conflicker is poised to take over about 30% of the world's PC's which
amounts to about 300 to 350 million computers! That sure sounds like
a dud to me MSNBC. The worst part is that the 2nd
part of the virus is about to drop and no one even knows what it is
intended to do. So that certainly is nothing to worry about if you
don't like using your computer or having your data entirely destroyed
or any of a million scenarios that a serious virus could potentially
bring about.
If
you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to
comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this
story flag it for a feature!
If
you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call
715-894-1001today
or send me an
email.
It
appears the growth of Twitter is growing. That makes sense
right?
Well its pretty obvious that most people on the web are becoming
familiar with Twitter and it seems to go hand in hand with the
growing popularity of texting in general. But few could have seen
this kind of growth when the application was first launched. But as
the saying goes, what goes up must come down and Digg appears to be
going down. According
to this article they seem to be struggling for breath.
But
will the same happen to Twitter?
Well
I keep saying this and maybe I am wasting my breath but I really see
it losing popularity. Why? Because people are gaming it like crazy. I
just saw a group forming whose only purpose was to follow each other
in order to artificially inflate the number of followers that the
people have. Why? Because apparently some are seeing the number of
followers as a gauge of who to follow. I guess some weighting system
is needed but a lot of people are trying to wade through all of this
mess including developing apps that can basically “see
through”
this mess. One idea was to put weight on the number of retweets a
person has but I looked at the chart and all it seemed to me was a
list of the same exact people with the most followers. Time will
tell...
If
you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to
comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this
story flag it for a feature!
If
you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call
715-894-1001today
or send me an
email.
I
came across this
article the other day and being an avid Google supporter and
Google Apps user ( I use dozens of them) I was a bit disappointed.
Now I guess I am complaining about my ability to use a no charge
program but for one of the biggest corporations in the world I guess
I would think they can afford it. Not to mention that when we use the
word free, sure its free of charge but it certainly is not free of
advertising. Not to mention the majority of Google programs that we
use track our every move which in turn leads to more advertising or
rather “better” advertising.
Also
as the article points out, lets not forget that “When Google
Apps
first launched
in August 2006 it was free and described as “a
service available at no cost to organizations of all shapes and
sizes.””
The
other thing to consider is the price we pay in using them. For every
Google app that we use that another company makes a similar product
we are taking away from their potential revenue. Now when this comes
to Microsoft I am not going to be offering anyone a tissue but when
it comes to smaller companies then yes I take issue.
Another
thing I take issue with is how Google enforces usage on some of their
programs. I offered to help my wife set up a blog using blogger for
her students but after getting everything set up I quickly realized
that it required that the students have a Gmail account to even have
access. This is really disappointing to me and frankly reeked of
Microsoft. We ended up having to dump the whole project because you
can't force public school children to sign up for Gmail.
If
you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to
comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this
story flag it for a feature!
If
you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call
715-894-1001today
or send me an
email.
I
just came across this
article and regardless of your political affiliation this
sounds
like a good idea to me. It actually feels a lot like thinking outside
the box so to speak because of the hundreds and thousands of articles
I have seen and read I have never seen this suggested. But why not?
Everyone has to pay the energy bill regardless of whether they are a
home owner or renter. This would really hit home for almost every
American faced with bills that can just be plain overwhelming. Maybe
there is more to this but to me it seems spot on. Good job is all I
can say.
If
you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to
comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this
story flag it for a feature!
If
you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call
715-894-1001today
or send me an
email.
Andrew
Wyeth, the legendary painter of Christina's
world, recently
died. I have always had an appreciation for art but it wasn't
until one of my last semesters in college that I had an opportunity
to take a formal art class. It was there that one of my favorite
professor's and friends taught me about Andrew Wyeth and introduced
me to the aforementioned work.
When I first started designing my website I thought
it would
be
important to include some of my interests as well. Thats why on each
page I have tried to include important works of art or pieces that I
found interesting. One
of my pages on my site looks like this.
If you take at the first painting the
house in the background is the house on my website. It was the home
of Christina Olson the subject of the painting. There is a lot more
to the story and I don't think I could tell it as well as the first
time I heard it but I invite you to take a look.
If
you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to
comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this
story flag it for a feature!
If
you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call
715-894-1001today
or send me an
email.
I guess most
people don't follow
statistics or probably even care about how popular their favorite
social networking site. They might not even know what social
networking is other than “that thing that they talk to their
friends on” Well now Facebook has gained so much traction and
is
now more that just gaining traction its full speed ahead and no
stopping now. Its not nearly twice the size of Myspace worldwide!
(Oh and if you
are on Facebook you
probably new how popular it was already...duh!) :)
As
I discussed and was no doubt disgusted in the
first part of this
series I now bring you Part 2. Its hard to write about
something that
most of us are forced to use but can do little about it. Thats the
hard thing about monopolies because once they are in place, you have
no choice but to make your extortion payment each month on time or
risk losing that service. Now to be fair of the Telco companies they
are not alone in this sort of racket. Your stack of bills each month
probably contains letters from many companies that enjoy a monopoly,
your cable bill, your energy bill, your medical bills (pharmaceutical
companies, insurance, etc) Then when you get in your car you have the
lovely oil companies to thank for the bonus bill each time you fill
up your tank. Really it must be nice being a large corporation in
America because no matter how you do business you get treated great.
Plus even if you fail it seems you have a large check just waiting
for you, the hard part is putting all the 0's at the end of it!
So
yeah, you are probably pretty disgusted with all this and are
thinking to yourself, wow this guy really likes to point out all the
lovely aspects of being an American. Well like I said before I
wouldn't write something unless there was a way to do something about
it. I am not one just to complain for the sake of complaining. I like
to get people riled up sure, but I also like to organize and truly
change the way things are. So what can you do?
Short
of tossing your phone in the garbage (which won't help because now
you have to pay for a new phone even if you bought that expensive
insurance package and your bill comes each month regardless) you can
read
this article here to see what the EFF (Electronic Frontier
Foundation) is actively doing to protect your rights.
While
you are at it why not become a member? If they are successful in some
of their campaigns, the little bit that you contribute could pay for
itself when these companies are forced to finally pay up.
