Real Estate, Updates, News & Tips - Marie Kozacek - iPro Real Estate

REALTORS: 12 basic rules of online marketing

Don’t just throw spaghetti at the wall -- create value with your messageKey Takeaways Make sure your online marketing plan is in sync with your overall business goals, and be consistent.In today’s ever-changing, digital marketing landscape, you have to have an online presence, or you’ll get passed by.But not knowing where to start and feeling like you have to do it all to be successful leaves many real estate agents frustrated and intimi

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Best Alternatives to Pricey Urban Meccas

Many of the nation’s premier urban meccas come at a steep price to home buyers and renters. But researchers at realtor.com® have pinpointed affordable alternatives to the country’s hottest locales.They uncovered budget-friendly counterparts to some of the nation’s most expensive metros, referring to them as “metro matchups.” They are places comparable to urban meccas in many ways but whose housing prices largely remain below $350,000.

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Lot Prices in Midwest Hit Record High

Builders are paying more for new-home lots, and those expenses will be passed on to home buyers. Single-family lot prices remained at record levels last year, with half costing $45,000 or more, according to a National Association of Home Builders analysis of Census Bureau data. It’s the second consecutive year that lot prices have been at record highs; the previous record was in 2006, during the housing boom, when lots averaged $43,000.Rising l

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Top Amenities for Relocating Baby Boomers

Baby boomers say they want to move to a home that has a multicar garage and that’s near their grandchildren, according to the latest Del Webb Baby Boomer Survey, sponsored by national home builder PulteGroup Inc. The age at which baby boomers expect to retire is getting younger, down from 65 in 2013 to 63.7 in 2017, according to the survey of more than 1,000 adults between the ages of 50 and 65. Thirty-eight percent say they plan to purchase a

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Why Single-Family Rentals Gain Market Edge

Single-family rentals are the fastest-growing segment in the housing market, outpacing owner-occupied single-family homes and all multifamily housing, according to the Urban Institute. Single-family rentals now account for 35 percent of the country’s 44 million rental units.That figure is likely to increase, according to a panel of experts hosted by the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center. Changing demographics and housing market

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California Wildfires Heat Up Housing Crunch

Areas of California affected by wildfires may have an inadequate supply of emergency housing for victims because those markets were already facing severe inventory shortages, industry experts warn. The fires have torn through Northern California’s wine country, destroying thousands of homes and businesses. In particularly hard-hit Santa Rosa, rents are already among the highest in the country. Inventory shortages and skyrocketing home values th

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Beverly Carter’s Family Sues Her Brokerage

Family members of Arkansas real estate agent Beverly Carter, who was murdered in 2014 after being kidnapped from a rural property outside Little Rock, have brought a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against her brokerage, Crye-Leike. The family alleges that the company failed in its duty to properly train Carter to avoid life-threatening situations in the course of her real estate work. Carter is survived by her husband and two sons, though

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REALTOR: 3 ways to warm up your cold call game

Step out of your box, and give it a tryWhen Myrtle Beach-based agent Abe Safe was newly licensed, he started out purely cold calling for a few months. As a new agent, he had little else to do, so he was committed.After he got comfortable making cold calls, he started on expireds and FSBOs. His goal was to make a minimum of 40 contacts per day.By the end of his first year, he closed 40 transactions, and roughly a quarter of those deals came from

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REALTORS: 5 thrifty home renovations that get sellers the most ROI

Inexpensive fixes tend to offer the highest returnsKey Takeaways Sellers often lose money making high-cost renovations. Inexpensive renovations tend to offer higher ROI and present less risk than costly projects.Can you list the home renovations that get the best returns for sellers? If not, can you honestly claim to get top dollar for sellers’ homes?Tracy McLaughlinOn a podcast with Pat Hiban, Tracy McLaughlin shared her expert advice on home

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Haunting drone footage captures scorched Santa Rosa

Heartbreaking video shows a postal truck delivering mail to a ghost townA neighborhood turned to ash is perfectly still save a lone postal truck slowly traversing the street. Surrounded by scorched earth, charred car frames and nothing but sticks where houses once stood, a USPS worker forges on delivering mail to a ghost town in Santa Rosa, California, at least where mailboxes remain.If a picture can paint a thousand words, a short drone video as

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