Posts Tagged ‘services’

I spend a large portion of my time talking with executives from the real estate industry and I have been hearing quite a bit of negative talk regarding Fannie and Freddie Mac in the past few months due to their financial woes.  However I wanted to give some different perspective, I personally believe that the real estate market NEEDS Fannie and Freddie, and the The California Association of Realtors agree with me, and they’ve created the video below to give their perspective.

In “Fannie and Freddie: Why They Matter to You,” Singer explains the often confusing but critical role Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in the housing market.

“California’s housing and real estate market is currently in a precarious state,” Singer said. “We have just recently begun to see an increase in home sales, and the most significant, reliable source of home loans in California today are either financed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Their role is to provide continuous and competitively priced capital to the mortgage markets in both up and down markets and to promote homeownership and affordability.

“When private lenders have not been able to participate in the market, Fannie and Freddie historically have been there,” he said. “They’ve been there with affordable mortgages and they’ve also been there with innovative programs, particularly for low-income and first-time buyers.”

C.A.R. is concerned that the critical countercyclical role which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are currently playing in today’s housing market often is misunderstood or misrepresented. C.A.R. is urging lawmakers to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current role, and to urge the U.S. Treasury Dept. to exercise restraint in its new authority to purchase equity in Fannie and Freddie.

“If Fannie and Freddie were not in the marketplace, we would see a disastrous loss in housing activity,” Singer said. “That loss would extend to the economy, and opportunities for homeownership would be very much reduced. Wall Street and financial institutions have long seen Freddie and Fannie as competitors. They’re able to charge much more in those areas where Fannie and Freddie can’t participate — for example, high-cost loans.

“Consumers need to keep involved in the political process and the public policy process and urge their elected representatives to be supportive of Fannie and Freddie,” he said. “Simply put, California’s housing market needs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to continue in their current role of guarantying a constant and reliable supply of capital.”

Small businesses—of which there are nearly twenty-five million in the United States—form the backbone of the American economy. As more and more consumers turn to the Internet to find products and services, small business owners are faced with the challenge of making their presence known in the online marketplace.

A disparity exists, however, between consumer practice and small business response. While nearly 75% of U.S. consumers use the Internet when shopping for goods and services, less than 10% of advertising dollars are spent online, and nearly half of all small businesses don’t even have a website.

For years, many small business owners spent the bulk of their advertising dollars on traditional media such as print advertising in local newspapers or the yellow pages. (Some small businesses go so far as choosing outrageous names for the sole purpose of getting listed first!)

“In the online marketplace, small businesses often lag behind the competition due to lack of computer know-how and inability to adapt their messaging, resulting in a failure to be found online,” says John Wall, CEO of Innuity, Inc., a Software as a Service (SaaS) company headquartered in Redmond, WA, that delivers online solutions specifically targeted to small businesses. “There are myriad ways for America’s small businesses to grow online, from targeted online advertising campaigns to enhanced search engine optimization.”

Small businesses in need of some online marketing savvy in order to stay competitive in today’s plugged-in marketplace include everything from sole proprietors working from home, to local family doctors and dentists, to neighborhood restaurants, private law practices, and most everything in between.

“It became obvious we needed a presence on the web,” says Innuity client Dr. Dave Parker of the Washington Institute of Sports Medicine. “We knew we didn’t want to spend $10,000 to get started, and we also didn’t want to have someone do it for us who would turn around and keep charging us to maintain it.” Innuity’s Internet technology is based on an affordable, on-demand model that allows small businesses to interact simply with customers, business partners, and vendors, and efficiently manage their business.

“The Internet is a fantastic platform for businesses of any size and stripe,” says Mr. Wall. “Thanks to the power of the web, small truly is the new big.”

Considering the state of the real estate market presently, it is vital to offer your clients as many value-added services as possible.  And I’ve found a great online resource that helps to make moving more efficient.  Relocation.com and HGTV’s, FrontDoor.com have partnered their services and now provide free moving quotes from Relocation.com’s moving professionals that will be available to FrontDoor.com users through the Moving tab.

Relocation.com also will provide FrontDoor.com with original articles from its relocation experts and additional moving-related content that helps further engage consumers, providing everything from packing tips to planning tools to money savings tips for their upcoming move.

According to Relocation.com’s 2008 consumer survey, 66 percent of recent movers searched for their moving professionals online. This is a way you can offer a great service to your clients and enable their move to be as quick and easy as possible.

“Despite the challenges in today’s real estate markets, consumer interest in the real estate sector hasn’t waned. Working with a leading consumer media property such as HGTV’s FrontDoor.com is a natural fit for us,” said Greg Hebner, CEO, Relocation.com. “We know that consumers are using the Internet as a primary source for finding moving services, and this partnership is a great way for us to extend the reach of our unique moving content and resources with one of the Internet’s most visited real estate destinations.”

“We are dedicated to providing users with a robust real estate resource that pulls together in one place everything needed to find and then settle into a new home. Working with Relocation.com will allow FrontDoor to provide our site visitors with additional high quality, original content as well as access to moving professionals,” said Vikki Neil, vice president of real estate at Scripps Networks, parent company of FrontDoor.com.

During economic slowdowns I always look for the silver lining, and with the current subpar job market, right now is the best time to start your own business. And how do I know the economy is in trouble? I listen to what the CPA’s are saying, since they are the one’s accounting for business cashflow (of lack thereof). The U.S. economy has already entered a recession and the outlook remains negative according to a majority of chief financial officers and senior-level executive CPAs surveyed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

For a third consecutive quarter, executive CPAs serving in business and industry continue to foresee slowing economic growth ahead, the latest AICPA-UNC Business and Industry Economic Outlook Survey shows.

“Our members are still seeing increased pressure on profits from rising costs without the ability to raise prices,” said Chris McKittrick, director of members in business, industry and government for the AICPA. “Expectations for revenue and hiring are trending downward.”

A 62 percent majority of CPA respondents said they were pessimistic or very pessimistic about the economic outlook for the U.S. over the next 12 months, an increase in pessimism from 57 percent who held negative expectations in the second quarter. Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they believe the U.S. economy has already entered a recession. The survey found only 10 percent of CPAs in executive positions expressed optimism about the economy, a decline from 12 percent in the second quarter.

“It is hard to see much good news here,” said Mark Lang, PhD, a professor of accounting at UNC Kenan-Flagler. “There were some hopeful signs in last quarter’s survey suggesting that the economy might be bottoming out, but weakness persists across the board. The fact that firms continue to reduce planned growth in capital investment, staff development and employment is particularly troubling since it suggests that slowdown could have longer-term implications.”

Chief financial officers remain more optimistic about their own organizations than they are about the broader U.S. economy, although the declining trend in economic outlook is mirrored in declining optimism for their own companies.

“As I met people at our Controller’s Workshop in Las Vegas in July I asked many of them this simple question: ‘How’s your business?’ I was surprised by how many responses I got like ‘Just fine’ and ‘We’re ahead of last year and ahead of plan,’” McKittrick said. “Maybe things are not as bad as we might be lead to believe and the tough times are limited to certain industries at this time.”

Thirty-eight percent of executive CPAs said they were optimistic or very optimistic about their organization’s economic prospects over the next 12 months, a 7 percentage point decline from 45 percent who were upbeat in the second quarter. At the same time, financial executives with pessimistic or very pessimistic views of their own organization’s outlook increased to 27 percent in the quarter, up from 22 percent in the prior period.

Fed Policy, Energy Prices
Notwithstanding the pessimism for the economy, CFOs and executive CPAs said Congress and the Federal Reserve should refrain from pumping more cash into the economy. Asked whether Congress should pass a second economic stimulus package to boost the economy, 74 percent rejected the idea. A strong majority of 62 percent said the Fed should maintain interest rates at current levels.

Addressing oil prices, 36 percent of CPA decision-makers support opening up additional land and offshore areas for drilling and 27 percent support additional financial incentives for alternative energy. Nine percent said the government should take no action and let the market drive responses. There was very little support – 3 percent – for releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. When asked what actions, if any, companies are taking to help their employees with high gasoline prices, 63 percent said “none.” Thirteen percent were implementing flexible or compressed work schedules and 11 percent allow telecommuting.

Economic Data
There is some debate among economists about whether the U.S. is presently in a recession or will enter a recession as the economy slows. The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass., defines a recession as a ‘significant’ decrease in activity over a sustained period of time measured by declines in GDP, payrolls, production, sales and incomes. The NBER usually declares a recession six to 18 months after it begins. A widely-used definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of declining Gross Domestic Product. U.S. GDP declined in the fourth quarter of 2007, but rose in the first and second quarters of 2008, according to the U.S. government’s inflation-adjusted numbers. Revised second quarter data is due Aug. 28.

If you’re a small business owner or planning to become one, it is vital to have a strong understanding of your potential consumers. And in this day and age, knowing your customers’ technological habits is crucial for success. Forrester Research released the results of its 2008 North American Technographics Benchmark survey, its largest annual data set about consumers’ technology adoption and attitudes, based on a mail survey of nearly 61,000 consumers representing 53,000 households in the US and Canada. A rich data asset for Consumer Market Research professionals’ product planning and go-to-market strategy assessments, the 11th annual Benchmark includes responses to more than 100 questions covering 1,500 elements and more than 450 brands. It is the largest ongoing survey in the world to explore consumer attitudes, ownership, and use of technology.

A generational analysis of the survey results is available in the new report, “The State Of Consumers And Technology: Benchmark 2008.” By examining the unique technology profile of each generation, Consumer Market Research professionals can gain critical insight into future buying and adoption trends for their target demographic and set their product strategies for the next five years.

“Gen Y is the audience that most companies are struggling to understand right now because it’s key to their future revenue growth,” said Charles Golvin, principal analyst at Forrester Research. “One of the questions we’re asked most frequently is the difference between Gen Y and Gen X, and this year’s data clearly shows the distinction. Gen Xers use technology when it supports a lifestyle need, while technology is so deeply embedded into everything Gen Yers do that they are truly the first native online population.”

According to the report, although Gen Y is a small generation of 18- to 28-year-olds, comprising only 38 million US adults, it sets the pace for technology adoption. Nine in 10 Gen Yers own a PC, and 82 percent own a mobile phone. But it is technology use that sets this generation apart: Gen Y spends more time online — for leisure or work — than watching TV; 72 percent of Gen Y mobile phone owners send or receive text messages; 42 percent of online Gen Yers watch Internet video at least monthly.

In contrast, Gen X, which is comprised of 29- to 42-year-olds — 63 million US adults — uses technology when it intersects with a personal need or fulfills a desire. For example, 32 percent of Gen X households own an HDTV, and 29 percent have a DVR. In the past three months, 69 percent of online Gen Xers shopped online and 65 percent banked online, higher percentages than any other generation. Gen X is also ramping up its Internet and mobile activities, including reading blogs (21 percent of online Gen Xers do it at least monthly, up from 15 percent in 2007) and texting (61 percent of Gen X mobile subscribers do it today, up from 49 percent in 2007).