REITs and YOU

Today I was in class at ProForce in Edina. Thought I would combine my need for continuing ed credits with a couple courses that might enrich my knowledge of REITs and 1031 exchanges. Overall, I was pleased with the first day. The instructor is knowledgeable, albeit not as much as I had hoped. He spent at least an hour and half pitching a new Mortgage REIT he liked.

However, I did pick up some very good tidbits, albeit information that I should have known already had I not been so caught up in this new web initiative.

Anyways, REITs (short for Real Estate Investment Trusts) are all the rage. In the coming days I will write more extensively on the REIT industry, because I really believe there are some good long term opportunities in REITs.

What did I learn today? I learned that the capital gains rate had fallen to 15%, well I knew that already...it was at 20%. What I did not know is that if you are in the 10 or 15% tax bracket, then your capital gains rate falls to 5%. That is actually significant for me, as the majority of my ordinary income is offset my my partnership losses. I am hoping to sell a fairly significant chuck of property this year, and that little tidbit that I might qualify for a 5% capital gains rate...would save me well over $50K!.

Anyways, tomorrow I am going to talk more about mortgage REITs and also post some resources for the REIT industry.

On a side note, this site is now doing over 1000 unique visitors per day!! Next goal: 1500...thanks for reading and please post comments if you have any questions about REITs.

Brent

Atlanta Update

Boy it feels good to be on the top of your game! I've been working very hard the last 6 months to prove a point. Great Homes in Minnesota was my first foray into online real estate. Within months it quickly became one of the most highly traffic'd agent websites in the nation. I was wondering if it was luck, skill, or a combo of both. Granted I've been one of the top search engine marketers in the country for the last several years, but you still wonder how much is luck and how much is skill - even a healthy ego like mine has days of doubt.

On top of that, Google is "sick", it's acting funny. Change is afoot. Up is down, down is up. With that in mind I began building Great Homes in Georgia in early May of 2003. It's tough building a good site, it takes a lot of time, and about a month of solid work to develop and promote. Not too mention all the costs of hosting, MLS access, licensing, team building, processes, parters,etc.. But today, July 29th, it started to pay off!

Google's "everflux" produced, at least temporarily some awesome rankings for Great Homes in Georgia. 9 top 10 rankings! That's not #1,but for the first iteration of a site that still needs work, that is awesome! Of the 15,000+ realtors in the State of Georgia, I'm already in the top 10 in terms of search engine rankings. :-) That's tough to beat! I'll post some site stats in the coming days.

Brent

Minneapolis Mob #2

You are invited to take part in a MOB, the project that creates an inexplicable mob of people in Twin Cities Area for 10 minutes or less. Please forward this to other people you know who might like to join. If you don’t participate, please forward it to a friend anyways!

MOB #2 - “Going uptown, going downtown”

Locations: TBA (To be announced)
Start time: Wednesday, July 30th, 7:18 pm
Duration: 10 minutes

(1) At some point during the day on July 30th, synchronize your watch at http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Central/d/-6/java

(2) The day of the event, you can get a detailed script for the event by meeting at the following locations at 7:00 PM based on the month of your birthday.

NOTE: if you are attending the MOB with friends, you may all meet in the same bar, so long as at least one of you has the correct birth month for that location.

Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr.: Uptown Bar & Cafe, 3018 Hennepin Ave (Bar)

May Jun. Jul. Aug.: William’s Pub, 2911 Hennepin Ave (Lower level)

Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.: Famous Dave’s – Calhoun Square (Bar)

(3) Then or soon thereafter, a MOB representative will appear and provide event details. Look for an individual in a “PRADA” shirt or a “MOB” button. He or she will provide you a slip of paper, on which two important pieces of information will be printed: (a) the MOB site, and (b) secret event details.

Commit these details to memory and put the slip in your pocket. ONCE YOU ARE AT THE MOB SITE, NONE OF THESE SLIPS OF PAPER SHOULD BE VISIBLE.

(4) Leave the bar and walk to the MOB site. If you arrive near the final MOB destination before 7:18, stall nearby. NO ONE SHOULD ARRIVE AT THE FINAL MOB DESTINATION UNTIL 7:16

(5) Find the site and begin the objective. Be animated and follow the intended script.

(6) At 7:28 you should disperse. NO ONE SHOULD REMAIN AT THE MOB SITE AFTER 7:30.

(7) Return to what you would otherwise have been doing.

To the press: Please do not report on the event to the public prior to the actual event time of 7:18pm CST on the day of the event. If you wish to report on the event please save your interviews until after the event activities are completed and the mob has begins to leave. If you would like to verify this script, email the auto-responder at minneapolismob@hushmail.com. This is an unmanaged account and only responses after validating an account. No email will be read at this account.

The Melting Pot and Mall of America

On Sunday night, Jen and I headed out to the Mall of America, which was a big mistake. I really don't understand why anyone would shop there, outside of Nordstroms and perhaps a few specialty shops. It's so easy to get lost! And the stores close at 7pm on Sunday night...what a joke. With Saks not open on Sunday, Minneapolis pretty much sucks for shopping.

Anyways, so we left MOA and headed back downtown to dine at "The Melting Pot". MP is located on the corner of Marquette and 9th St. According to our server, reservations are always suggested and essential on the weekends. The atmosphere is fairly upscale. However, Jen and I were pretty casual, I was wearing shorts and Jen had on a pair slacks (but she still looked good!)..so perhaps she looked good enough for us both!. The other couples I saw were a bit more "dressed up"..but no worries...the seating is private in the sense that the booths are high, so when sitting it's not possible to the other patrons.

Pricing is aggressive, but not too bad. We got out of there with a $90 tab ($110 with tip)...but Jen was drinking soda and I had a couple glasses of Chianti (highly recommended!)..no desert. We ordered the three course "fondue for two"...for our cheese fondue we chose the "Spinach and Artichoke" with swiss cheese...that was incredible. That was actually very filling. The salads were next...I had the Chef Salad and enjoyed it, but it was nothing special. Jen had something with walnuts, can't remember what it was called. She didn't like it. Maybe she'll comment and tell us what she had?

Our server then arrived with the entrées. Even though I was getting full, I initially thought the portions were kind of small, we had chosen chicken, beef, salmon and shrimp. Vegetables such as squash, mushrooms, broccoli are also provided - potatoes too! According to our server, the vegetables / potatoes are "all you can eat."

I thought the entrées were great. Jen, however, was less then thrilled. She didn't really have a reason, but I don't think she liked the bouillabaisse (spelling?)...She did really like the shrimp.

Overall, I would return to The Melting Pot. Jen would return for the cheese fondue. According to our server, the cheese and chocolate fondues are also served at the bar -- which would be cool to eat and listen to some good jazz. Realistically, you could order just the cheese fondue, wine and some desert and that would be more than enough for a meal.

We may return to Oceanaire later this week so look for that update coming up!

Early Sunday update

Well I hope everyone has been having a great weekend! I spent Friday night at Ribfest in Downtown Minneapolis. The ribs were excellent, but they sure stick it to ya with the ticket pricing. Granted, I like ribs, but it's a bit ridiculous to drop over $100 on beers, ribs and funnel cakes (2 people). Speaking of dropping coin, has anyone been to Solera? My girlfriend and I checked it out a few weeks ago, it was pretty good, but definitely not outstanding. Our wine was excellent, and a couple of the tapas were great, but overall I was once again denied a truly great dining experience. I've tried many, many of the restaurants in the Twin Cities, but few have been good enough to return again and again..what's up with that? Oceanaire is awesome, Origami (sushi)is in a class by itself and Sapor is incredible, but that's about it. I'll keep you posted if I run across anything noteworthy...La Bella Vie?

Wireless Music Sharing and a test of Trackback

This from a Blog run by a bunch of Venture Capitalists? Silicon Valley must be slow if VCs have time to write in blogs, or perhaps the blog creates new synergies via information sharing, thus overall productivity increases, thus the time for blogs? Sometimes I miss pitching VCs. Maybe if this real estate concept takes off it will springboard into something bigger. The again, I didn't really like having VCs on my last board of directors...so I am in no rush!

Geekfishing Blog

Ribfest started on Wednesday!!!

Rainbow Foods Rockin' Ribfest 2003

Put Weblogs to Work

Macworld: Put Weblogs to Work

Trademarked Keyword Theft

This is a test of of the Trackback functionality in Moveable Type. The article below was written by a another real estate blogger in Florida, John Mudd. Actually,this piece only reference John's original work.

Personally, I buy the keywords of major real estate companies all the time. I'm a capitalist and to be honest, most people when they search for an Edina Realty or a CB Burnet, they are not so much searching for specific firm as they are the functionality of searching for a home online. My site provides that. Sort of like asking for Kleenex when what you really want is a tissue. Some of the large brokerages become synonymous with real estate and are the first thing that pops up in a consumers head when they think to begin searching for a home online. Most don't care how they search for a home..it's just another avenue like search engines, pay per click, etc..

Brent

TechLawAdvisor.com :: Kevin J. Heller's Internet and Intellectual Property Weblog

The Scary World of Commercial Real Estate

Interesting article in the Washington Post

Todd - are you reading this?

ieSpell for Internet Explorer

Have you ever been typing on a blog, or a text box or some other place on-line and wished you could spell check? Well, I found the tool for you, ieSpell, it works great!

Brent
www.greatmn.com

Blogging - The Cult

Blogging can be very addictive. It's difficult to spend so much time reading the thoughts of others...but that's the only way to learn. Writing is difficult. I never used to have such difficulty writing, but now I feel as though Ihave to hurry, hurry, hurry to get this post over, so I can get on to the real business of creating a leading blog for consumers and others within the real estate industry.

Why create a blog? 1) it's extremely educational. This is the cutting edge, this is the future. 2) search engines are assigning higher rankings to sites that are dynamic, by it's very nature a blog is dynamic and interactive. I need all the high rankings I can get 3) it's a legit business tool. I am still in the process of thinking up all the cool ways to properly make the blog useful to others...for now, it's a daily rant on the creation of a blog..in the future it will be about residential and commercial real estate and the challenges of being an entrepreneur. So long for now!

Brent

Going to Lunch

This is a test of a new category: Mortgage News, if all goes as planned I should have this category linked with a Mortgage news XML feed...Menus are working now as are the archives...now I just need to figure out the style sheets and RSS Feeds and we are golden!

Brent
http://www.greatmn.com

Real Estate Blog Update

Well, the blog and site update continues. I'm working on the templates and have updated most sections of the website. The phone has been ringing so much this morning that I haven't had much time to work on it!

Brent

2nd Day of Blogging

8:56am, got up at 7:30pm excited to expand on my blogging abilities. There are still some issues with archiving, but I should have those resolved by the end of the day. Ideally I'd like to get the Atlanta Blog up and running today as well. Blogs are the next big thing in business. They are going to transform the way information is shared and distributed. They will become an integral part of mainstream business / society in the next 12-36 months. There are only a handful of Realtors running blogs. Most of the sites are pretty much junk. As far as I know, I am the first agent in the United States attempting to implement a blogging network in cities all over the United States. Stay tuned and watch for lots of progress on the site!

Brent M. Kleinheksel
www.greatmn.com