Five Tips for US Home Sellers
July 23, 2011 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
The new homes market’s stats are almost as stark: a 319,000-unit sales pace in May, down 2.1 percent from April, a 6.2-month supply of news home in May, and a median sales price of $222,600, up 5.6 percent from April.
The data represent tell-tale stats. Still, are there any ways U.S. home sellers can increase the likelihood of selling their home in what amounts to a buyer’s market?
Indeed there are, and listed below are 5 tips that should better-position your home for a sale.
1. Incentives - In this market, it’s all about distinguishing your home from the pack, in a good-kind-of-way.
You have a 3-bedroom $600,000 home in suburban Boston? Consider throwing in 4 choice box seats to two Boston Red Sox games at Fenway Park or a night or two at the Boston Pops. Another option: 5 dinners-for-two at any of Boston’s many, superior restaurants.
You’d be amazed at how many potential buyers will attend your open house, just due to the incentives.
2. Enhanced Marketing - If you haven’t already, now is the time to get acquainted with online social networks, especially Facebook. Those over age 40 generally are not as social-media savvy as the younger crowd, so have your teen/college age son or daughter set it up, if that’s possible. The social media presence will enhance your real estate agent’s marketing operation.
3. Self-finance - This obviously is not an option for all home sellers, but consider floating a note – i.e. being willing to issue a short-term loan at a reduced interest rate to the buyer, for a 3-year or 5-year period. The loan should specify that if the buyer fails to qualify for a conventional, fixed-rate mortgage at the end of the note or otherwise defaults, you re-take possession of the home.
Mortgage rates are low, averaging about 4.53 percent for a 30-year, fixed rate mortgage, but if you take a note for 3% or 2.5% for 5 years, you’ll make more prospective home buyers eligible to buy your home.
4. Lease It - Again, for some home sellers, this is not practical, but if you can, consider leasing the home for 1 year or longer. The advantage is obvious enough: leasing extends your home sales window, and when the lease expires, U.S. housing market conditions may have improved. Some sellers are leasing their home for even less than their monthly mortgage payment: in the long run, if home sales rebound, they should recoup their month-to-month loss.
5. Lower the Price – Obviously consult your realtor — and an experienced attorney who knows your local real estate market — before considering this step. But be careful: lowering your price signals additional market softness to prospective home buyers, who may wait even more, to get a better deal.
In other words, buyers don’t tend to buy when prices are dropping: when they drop, they tend to wait to see if prices will decline more. The uptick in buyers occurs when home prices start rising, as buyers then sense a price bottom may have formed, and conclude that buying nowe may save them money on the home transaction.
Housing Analysis: There’s no way to sugar-coat — the U.S. housing market, with a few local exceptions, remains a decidedly ‘buyer’s market,’ and it will take at least four quarters — and probably longer — for home sales to rise enough to give some leverage back to home sellers.
But if you offer incentives, social market, consider offering a short-term loan, or decide to lease your home, all other factors being equal, you’ll better-position yourself in today’s challenging U.S. housing market.
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iContact Announces Expansion of iContact Social Tools Capabilities
July 23, 2011 by admin
Filed under Latest Lingerie News
Raleigh, North Carolina (PRESS RELEASE – July 23, 2011) – iContact Corp., a leading email marketing and social media marketing company, recently announced the latest version of their powerful Social Tools solution. iContact Social Tools give small- and medium-sized businesses a powerful and effective means to reach existing and new customers through social media channels – including Facebook and Twitter.
“iContact empowers businesses to easily use social media marketing, get actionable and relevant information and continually improve their marketing campaigns for long-term business success,” said Jeff Revoy, chief marketing and product officer at iContact. “We strive to provide the right solutions so that small- and medium-sized businesses can grow and succeed.”
“iContact’s solutions have always been so user-friendly, and its Social Tools are no exception,” said Vanessa Keyser, theater administrator, El Paso Playhouse. “We have promoted every email sent this year with Social Tools, and it has helped increase our publicity and broaden our patron base. Thank you iContact for creating tools that help our business continue to grow.”
According to the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, social media is a primary tool for marketers, with 88 percent surveyed viewing it as critical for increasing their exposure. iContact Social Tools allows businesses to capitalize on this opportunity by integrating emerging social media channels into any email campaign. Continually monitoring and measuring performance and impact helps identify the most effective channels.
iContact’s Hub for Social Media and E-Mail Integration
The upgraded version of iContact Social Tools significantly builds upon the foundation iContact established earlier this year, when the company started blending email marketing and social media marketing into a single conversation focused on small business success.
While social media is focused on sharing content and engaging customers in interactive discussions, email marketing helps convert the results of those initial engagements and conversations into targeted campaigns and long-term customers. Marketers must learn the nuances of how to synch the two approaches to achieve a higher ROI. They also need to outline objectives and goals, and have quantitative tools on hand to gauge whether a campaign is yielding the desired results.
Following are a few of the expanded features and functionality for iContact Social Tools:
Social Tools Tracking – Users can insert, edit and track Like and Tweet buttons in every message, for recipients to easily share with their friends, colleagues or followers on Facebook or Twitter. This feature splits up the tracking of Likes and Tweets by source so marketers can see how the numbers break down across viewers coming in from Facebook posts, Twitter posts, direct email recipients and other third-party sources.
Facebook Like Buttons – Contacts can now “like” a vendor’s emails from their inboxes to further extend their reach.
Tweet Buttons – Users can add a tweet button and contacts can tweet from anywhere in the message.
Miami’s Beacon Hotel has seen great success from using iContact Social Tools. Chris Regalado, revenue manager, and his team use Facebook to encourage fans and previous guests to sign-up for its email list and take advantage of promotions for future visits.
“It is easy to share information with ‘friends’ on Facebook; we have found that people are more likely to click on a link if it comes from a trusted source, so our customers can help us extend our reach,” said Regalado. “We have found that incorporating social media with email makes each approach more powerful, and helps us expand our marketing efforts and grow our brand awareness. iContact’s Social Media tools are very straightforward to use, we can see great results in a short period of time.”
About iContact
iContact is a purpose-driven company based in Raleigh, NC, working to make email marketing and social marketing easy so that small and midsized companies and causes can grow and succeed. Founded in 2003, iContact has more than 700,000 users of its leading email marketing software. iContact also provides the event marketing platform Ettend. As a B Corporation, iContact utilizes the 4-1s Corporate Social Responsibility Model, donating 1% of employee time to community volunteering, 1% of payroll, 1% of equity, and 1% of product to its local and global community as part of its social mission. iContact works hard to maintain a fun, creative, energetic, challenging, and community-oriented company culture.
