jolenta's Blog: Random Rants & Raves

Over the past few days I've shown 45 different properties ranging in price from $125K to over $800K to three different sets of buyers. That's enough properties to give almost anyone a decent idea what's happening with the Madison real estate market which, by the way, is still a buyer's market like most of the U.S. housing market.

That's why I feel compelled to tell you how surprised I am at some of the obvious transgressions sellers are still making when it comes to preparing their homes to be shown by a Realtor. And no, you are not seeing things. That is, in fact, a pile of three knee-pad sized bras laying on the bed of an otherwise perfectly immaculate house!

How did this happen when the rest of the house was so beautifully and meticulously prepared?…

There have been dozens of articles written about the value of entering the keywords you want to get ranked for in the anchor text of backlinks you build to promote your site. As you know, backlinks help your site get ranked by search engines for your target keywords, resulting in more traffic to your site. A virtuous circle of sorts.

One important source of backlinks are the comments that you leave on DoFollow blogs, however usually the only opportunity to build anchor text on DoFollow blogs consists of little more than leaving your name. While this helps you rank well for your name, it’s more or less worthless for the keywords you're trying to rank for. That’s why lots of commentators like to enter keywords into the name field, but they do run the risk…

At long last Lake & City Homes Realty is proud to announce its new yard signs and open house signs!

A big thank you to Lisa Whiting and Marily Crews-Nelson of Whopping Big Signs (a division of Magellan Mapping out of Waunake, WI), for the skillful reproduction of our new logo, including its signature skeleton key onto a 24x36, full color, 2-sided, 080 aluminum, ≈24 gauge, baked white enamel sign with rounded corners and grommets top and bottom!

Please take a look at the final results and record your comments in our blog. A great deal of effort went into the design and production of this most important piece of business collateral and we really, really want to know what you think about it!

Lake, City, Lake. The motto of the city of Madison, WI.

Yep, it's that time again. It's that time of year I sit in my office, hands slightly elevated over my keyboard, struggling to keep the blood flowing in the right directions, trying to ward off the frigid Wisconsin temps (it doesn't help that I have the worst circulation known to man!). Yes, it's that time of year I feel the need (half-jokingly) to remind myself why I moved back to Madison WI five years ago in the first place. The answer is, of course, because I thought it would be a great place to buy a house, raise a family and start a business. But a part of me assumed anyone views their hometown that way. At the time I was making my decison, I remembered all the great things about growing up in…

Recently there's been an extensive discussion on the REW forum between a number of REW clients and a home seller who has been having difficulty selling their home. A lot of excellent advice has been dispensed on the part of REW's many savvy Realtors around the country and it seems that the seller has clearly benefitted from the generosity of the Forum's members. One area in particular that has been heavily discussed is the possibility that the house is over-priced. There has been little evidence to suggest that the house is not overpriced. Also, it has been firmly established that, due to extensive remodeling, the condition of the house is probably not cause for concern. And yet, the seller has been on the market for many long months and has not managed to…