Tim's Atlanta Real Estate Blog: June 2007

If a world class violinist was playing the most beautiful music ever written on one of the best violins ever made, do you think you would take notice even if he were playing at a subway station?

Is talent automatically recognized for what it is no matter where it is viewed?  Or is the recognition of talent conditioned on how we are set up to receive the performance?  If we aren't told ahead of time that we should be impressed with something, do we actually end up missing some of the beauty?

The Washington Post  set up an experiment to test this out. You'll be amazed at the results they got.

They got Joshua Bell, an internationally acclaimed virtuoso who had just a few days earlier played to standing room only audiences where tickets were over $100, to play for 45 minutes at the top of the escalators at a Washington D.C. subway station.  Go read the story and watch the videos of his performance.

They were worried that they would have crowds around the performer and there would be major congestion and the police would have to be called in to disperse the crowds.  What happened was the complete opposite.  Out of over 1000 people who passed by this performer over a 45 minute period, only 7 stopped to listen for any length of time.

To me, it drives home the point that to be really successful, it takes more than being really good at what you do.  It takes a great reputation and good marketing.   The proper venue and the conditioning of the audience ahead of time are also very important. 

One might be a great real estate agent but if you don't set the stage correctly, people won't notice you or they won't value your craft.

Even here on ActiveRain I see something similar.  Someone might write a wonderful article and no one seems to notice.  Then you see another person write about the same thing and get featured and get over 100 comments.  Why do the words and ideas coming from one person attract rave reviews while the same words and ideas coming from another person go unnoticed? 

I think it has to do with the reputation that you build for yourself and the buzz that you create.  Sometimes it seems to happen by itself.  Many times it takes many little concerted efforts to build that reputation so that no matter what you write, people will listen and take notice.

I guess that creating buzz is an art-form in itself.

I had the opportunity to attend a 3 hour seminar this morning put on by Jeff Wilhems, founder of Agent Toolbox.  Jeff flew in two "top gun" agents as his guests, Michael  Reese and Jay Kinder.  All three are members of ActiveRain.  All three are doing phenomenal business. 

Jay Kinder is out of Lawton Oklahoma.  He said that he has 14% market share. Something like 120 listings out of around a total of 900 listings. He sold 523 homes in 2006.  Lawton has a population of 100,000. He's number 3 in the world for Coldwell Banker. He's only 29 years old.

Michael Reese got in the business four years ago after mentoring with Jay.  I forget how many homes he sold last year but it was in the hundreds.  He is only 27 years old.

Jeff Wilhems has worked out an amazing system that he is now selling to agents all over the country. His wife is an agent in Tucson so everything is field tested.  His wife's team sold 500 homes over the last two years.  She's only been an agent for three years.

He gave out a lot of good information during those 3 hours. 

It was kind of funny.  All three have been on ActiveRain for a few months.  They all feel that blogging is a great new tool to take advantage of.  Michael Reese was sitting up front looking back at the audience of around 70 people and he happened to recognize me from my profile here and pointed me out to the crowd. I was way in back and kind of wanted to remain anonymous. I heard one agent close by say something about me being the agent with nuts.  I was so glad to hear that my tag line is working. I'm still not certain about it but it apparently is sticking in the minds of a few people.

These guys are doing some amazing numbers.  Jay Kinder is actually the guy who manages Mike Cositgan's radio and TV commercials.  Mike Costigan is an Atlanta agent who blankets the area with some really good radio ads.  He has 280 listings. 

It was an honor to have met these guys.  The neat and inspiring thing is that they aren't doing anything that anyone else can't do after a little practice.  They've found a few things that work for them and they are out there doing it.  You can re-invent the wheel or just do what the successful people are doing. 

Jeff made a very interesting point near the end of his presentation.  He isn't growing his business by competing for business with other top agents in his area.  His competition and future source of business is from the agents who are only doing a few transactions per year.  These low volume agents just won't be able to compete against everything that he is coming up with.

My problem has been that I always have to try to re-invent the wheel.  Maybe I'll finally be smart and just do what the really successful people are doing.  Shoot, if a young kid in Lawton Oklahoma can do 500 sales, a middle aged guy in Atlanta Georgia should be able to do 1000.

Is discussing terms of payment part of the price fixing laws?

Craig Shiller had a featured post yesterday about how stagers should get paid at time of service and that asking to delay payment until closing was not reasonable.  I've read a few other posts written by other stagers discussing the same issue.

Aren't the terms of payment a big part of your price?  I put out the possibility that this could be deemed price fixing.  I'm not an expert in the field but I did find a website for a company that seems to know a lot about the antitrust laws.  Here is the pertinent part that I found. 

It is unlawful for competitors to reach any agreement or  understanding about prices, whether it is to raise, lower, or stabilize  prices, and any such discussions should be strictly avoided. The same  restriction applies to discussions of certain other terms and conditions  of sale, such as discounts, payment terms, credit, allowances and other terms which affect prices, profit margins, cost factors, discount or  credit terms, or any member's future intentions concerning any of those  subjects. EMA's members should not exchange with competitors price  schedules or future notices of price or product promotions.

Does anyone know for certain about this? 

Let's imagine that a large group of real estate agents all banded together and started requiring that their marketing costs be paid up upfront by the seller?  Would this not be considered restrictive and bad for the consumer?  Is not the total cost of a service made of of not only price but on how the price is paid?  Paying for something today is not the same cost as paying for something on Tuesday.

You can tell consumers exactly how much you charge and how you take payment, but I do think that it is against the law to talk about those things amongst competitors.

Please tell me if I'm way off base here. 

I used to always make counter offers by scratching out things and making changes directly to the contract.  After every change, the contract is usually faxed over to the other party and then faxed back.  Before long, you ended up with a contract that no one could read.  It's just one big black smudge.  Someone must then retype the contract so everyone can read it.  When you retype a contract, you run the risk that you might get something wrong.  Whoever makes the mistake is  liable.

I had always been reluctant to use the counter offer forms because I never knew for certain how to use them correctly.  Many other agents also seemed uncertain about their correct use.

I love working at RE/MAX Greater Atlanta because I have access to some of the best real estate minds out there.  Howell Haunson of Morris, Hardwick and Schneider, explained in detail exactly how to use counter offer forms.  Howell is on the Georgia Forms committee so he knows the contract inside out.   If you ever get the opportunity to attend one of his classes, jump at it. You'll love every minute of it.

These are the main points that Howell teaches about the counter offer form. 

• Always use the Counter Offer form whenever you want to counter an offer.
  
  
• The Counter Offer Form (signed by both Seller and Buyer) along with the Purchase and Sale Agreement (only signed by the Buyer) are a complete binding agreement upon delivery.  There should be no reason to RETYPE a contract.  ***(Remember, the seller should not have their signature on the main signature page of the contract.)***
  
  
• There should be only one Counter offer Form with the Purchase and Sale Agreement.
  
  
• All information from the preceding Counter Offer Form should be inclusive on the next Counter Offer Form.  The preceding Counter Offer Form can be trashed but you should keep it for a paper trail.   Every Counter should be on a new/different Counter Offer Form and should be numbered accordingly (example #1, #2, #3 etc).  The preceding Counter Offer Forms were never actually agreed upon by both parties and thus never signed by both parties.
  
  
  
• The buyer has the original Purchase and Sale Agreement and the Seller will have a faxed copy of the Purchase and Sale Agreement.  The only document that will need to be FAXED or delivered back and forth is the Counter Offer Form. It probably will only go through two faxings so it should remain readable.
   
  
• The Counter Offer Form states that "all terms and conditions of the Agreement are agreed to and accepted by the undersigned with the express exception of the following" - the Agreement is the Purchase and Sale Agreement.  Thus the parties are in agreement to the Purchase and Sale Agreement with the exception of what is expressed on the Counter Offer Form.
  
  
• Since everything is readable, just make copies of the contract and counter offer and all parties can sign over their signatures with blue ink at the closing table.  This way you eliminate the possibility of making a mistake when retyping the contract and all of the liability of those potential mistakes.

I have learned to love the counter offer form.  It makes for a clean and clear contract.

I used to be in the office cleaning business so I've seen how carpets are cleaned.  Usually detergents and chemicals are used.  The small little machines that you can rent at the hardware store are nothing more than toys.  The carpet takes a long time to dry and then much of the detergent remains on the fibers and actually acts like a dirt magnet.  Your carpets end up needing to be cleaned more often because of the sticky residue that is left.

Zerorez is different.  As the name implies, there is no residue left behind to attract dirt.  They use some kind of new technology that activates water in some way that makes it a very effective cleaner.  Their vacuum system is really awesome too.  A huge, super suction vacuum is mounted on their 20 ft. truck.  I don't know the exact specs but it sucks the carpet almost completely dry.  It takes only about 30 minutes before you can walk on the carpet.

Before deciding to replace carpet before listing a home, you might want to give Zerorez a try.  I had some really nasty carpet in my bedroom.  The kids had spilled all sorts of things on it.  I was certain I was going to have to rip it out and replace it.  Zerorez came out and made it look like brand new.

The prices seemed very reasonable and the service was outstanding.  I would consider them if you are looking for a good carpet cleaner.  They have franchises all across the country. 

The latest sales numbers for the Atlanta FMLS recently came out.  Overall, the total number of closings in May were down 28.5% vs. May of 2006.  But the average sales price went up from $263,087 to $264,487.

The reason for this increase in average sales price was due to the million dollar plus homes being a larger proportion of the total number of homes that have sold. In May of 2005 there were 50 homes over one million dollars sold which accounted for 4.36% of sales.  In May of 2007, there were 97 of these homes which accounted for 9.12% of total sales.

My personal observations confirm these numbers.  While driving around the ritzy neighborhoods north of Buckhead, I've seen many under contract signs. 

The big question that I get asked all of the time is "Who are all of these people who can afford to buy these million dollar homes?" It's not  a market that I've focused on, but I do know many people who live in million dollar plus homes.  They are usually just normal, nice people who have  a successful business and have made some very good financial decisions.  Many of them are also lawyers. 

I will eventually be one of those people.  So when you hear that question, you'll be able to say you know a nice guy who made his money by helping many people find the home of their dreams.

Many others have written about wearing name tags.  Last Friday on 20/20 there was a segment about a guy who has been wearing one of those sticky generic name tags for 2,424 days straight.  He has written a book about it and is now a big public speaker on the art of being approachable.

I'm intrigued by the idea of wearing a simple name tag with nothing other than my name.  Nothing real estate related that is screaming that I am a salesperson. Just a simple "Hello, my name is Tim". 

When I see someone with a name tag like that I figure that they were at some kind of meeting or convention.  It tells me that they would probably be open to talking with me.

Wouldn't that be a great ice breaker?  You wait for someone to ask you about your name tag.  You then have the opportunity to  start asking them about what they do. Most likely they will ask what you do.   Hopefully they kind of like you before they find out you are one of those dreaded salespeople.  Not that everyone avoids real estate agents but I'm sure there are quite a few people who have a certain stereotypical picture in their head that probably isn't too attractive. 

I'm going to have to test it out for a few weeks.  I'm talking about wearing it every where.  I just don't see a downside. 

What do you think?  Would it look silly wearing it out to dinner?  Would it open more doors?

I live in Sandy Springs and I like to stay up to date with what's happening around the area.  I've seen a lot of those free neighborhood newspapers over the years but they never caught my attention much. 

For some reason though, the new Sandy Springs Reporter comes across with a fresh voice that I really like.  I always look forward to the  next addition coming out.

The thing that caught me by surprise was the police blotter section.  I usually can't stop laughing at some of the stuff that Lt. Steve Rose of the SSPD writes up.  There's always some extra commentary about how the perpetrator screwed up and got caught. Sometimes he adds a moral to the story. In the latest addition there was the following.

A man called the police and said that he was in fear of his life, of his wife, because she "aggressively brushed up to him." He said as the day went on, things progressively got worse to the point that she was "snatching things away from him." The officer recorded the complaint and then gave the man a brochure for "Man Camp".

It's a fairly new paper and they don't have much of an online archive yet. Hopefully they'll get a better online version.  I find so much good information about what's going on.  There was a story about a wonderful old estate that is just a mile away from my home that is hidden from view from the street.  I would have never known about it except for this story. Glenridge Hall: A little known Sandy Springs historic gem

If you want the inside scoop on what's going on or what is planned for Sandy Springs, you have to make sure you read the Sandy Springs Reporter.  They also have the Buckhead Reporter which is also very good.

Writing content just because you think it's what the search engines want is really no different from spamming the search engines. Yeah, yeah, you or your SEO may call it "useful" but is it really useful? C'mon, you know it's not. It's crap. Pure and simple. Don't do it. It's no better than WPG doorway pages of yore, and it's just as fake.

Those words from Jill Whalen, the CEO and founder of High Rankings, sum up my feelings of what I see so often, especially in blogs. Go read her article, "You Can's Fake Real Content" because she says it better than I ever could.

I know that many look at blogs as nothing other than a place to put links that will get that site or another site better search engine rankings.  If that's all it is to you, then you're no better than an email spammer clogging up hyperspace.  Your posts are nothing more than weeds that are choking out the real information that people are looking for.

There are enough interesting things to write about out there.  Write about real stuff that someone might actually find beneficial or interesting.  Don't just create a post in order to generate lots of links and keyword phrases. 

My personal rule of thumb is simple.  If I wouldn't really have a conversation with someone about a certain item, then to me it's not worthy of writing it up. 

Work up an article that is actually something you would want to talk to someone about.  Something that might actually bring value to someone else's life.  Then you can optimize it in different ways so it has a better chance of being found.  Why write something that can be found and then it's not worth being read?  You can write good content and also get good search engine results.

Be honest with yourself.  Before posting something, ask yourself if you are just posting for points and search engine placement, or is what you are about to post worth the time for someone to read.

Do you want a lively discussion about the pros and cons about living in Atlanta? Well, you're not going to get it from reading what REALTORS®  selling homes in Atlanta have to say.  We all have too much of a vested interest.  I got the title for this post from the title of a forum thread at City-Data.com.  I stumbled upon this site recently and have really enjoyed the discussions that I find there. They also have just about any statistic about a zip code area that you could possibly imagine.

They have a forum for many areas around the country.  People put out a question and many locals chime in with their opinions.  It's kind of what I imagine what Zillow had in mind with their question and answer feature.  I don't see discussions about particular homes but there are discussions about specific areas and neighborhoods.

As a real estate agent, there are a lot of topics that I have to avoid discussing. People thinking about moving to Atlanta want to know about crime and schools and race and traffic.  They want to know the good, the bad and the ugly.  As a REALTOR®, I have to be very careful talking openly and honestly about topics such as school districts, crime and race.  I can't bad mouth an area or try to promote one area over another. There's a thing called steering and The Fair Housing Act. 

Many people ask me whether or not an area is safe.  How good are the schools?  How many blacks or whites or Jews or gays live in a particualr area?   I can't make those judgements for you. I have to stay away from most of that.  But it's what people want to know.

The City-Data site is an open forum where you can ask your questions and get honest answers from the people living in the area.  They don't have to hold back on their opinions.  At first I thought that it would be populated by a bunch of nuts and wackos.  After scanning through some of the posts, I really have to say that the opinions that most people put out are right on the money.

Go to http://www.city-data.com/forum/atlanta/

Below are some of the threads I read there.  Of course, there is always a difference of opinion.  But when you put it all together, you'll come up with a pretty good feel about what the real deal is.

I find it really refreshing and uplifting that people can discuss just about anything about an area and stay pretty civil with one another.  Religion, race, gays, lesbians, and crime are talked about without anyone getting nasty. It is what it is.  You can't sweep this stuff under the rug and make believe it doesn't matter to people.

As a real estate agent, it gives me a window into the thoughts and concerns of people who are moving to my area. 

how do white people treat bi-racial couples in cumming georgia and surrounding areas there

New Yorkers/New Jersians(sp?) are you happy there?

So what's bad about Mableton?

Stone Mountain.. is it Safe? PLEASE someone tell me

Need open, honest opinions about possible move to Atlanta

How dangerous is the Five Points area?

Colleen Kulikowski emailed me out of the blue the other day and said she was coming into Atlanta on personal business.  She was interested in getting together to meet in person.

We just got off the phone with each other and have planned to meet for lunch at 1:30 on Wednesday.  That's as in tomorrow.

I invited Jim Crawford and he suggested that we meet at Ted's Montana Grill which is located at the Forum Center off of Medlock Bridge Road in the Peachtree Corners area.

I know it's last minute, but if you can make it that would be great.

If you think that you can attend, leave a comment.  That way we can reserve a big enough table.

I know that rates are still at historic low levels, but I've just seen first hand how a relatively small rise in mortgage rates can really affect the price that someone can pay for a home.

Most people buy a home based on what the monthly payment will be, not on what the actual price is.  People only have so much to spend on a monthly house payment.

Consider a $400,000 loan amount at 5.75%.  The payment will be around $2334/month.  Say that this is the maximum that a family can afford to pay per month on housing.  They shop around for a few months and during this time, all of a sudden interest rates shoot up to 6.75%.  Now that same $2334/month will only buy a $360,000 mortgage.  Ouch!!!

If they wait around in hopes that rates go down again, they run the risk of rates going up even more.  If rates go up to 7.75%, they'll only be able to buy a $326,000 mortgage.

It used to be when short term rates were really low, the buyer might consider a 5 year adjustable with a lower rate which would give them their affordable monthly payment.  That rate differential isn't as big any more and with rates rising, it seems like a much more risky proposition.

The other group of buyers really affected by increasing interest rates  is the move up buyer.  I'm in that situation right now.  I have a nice 30 year fixed rate mortgage at 5.75%.  If I sell, I'll lose that rate and end up paying more for just what I have right now.  It's going to make the cost of moving up that much more painful.  I'll probably stay right where I am  instead.  Qualifying for lower mortgage amounts and fewer people moving up will put a damper on house prices.

Forget about the low end market or the sub-prime market.  Rising rates will be a blow to the gut of the middle priced market where credit issues usually aren't that much of a concern.

Let 's just hope that rates stay where they are or things could get ugly.

Yesterday, Elaine Reese wrote an interesting post about a listing agent refusing to allow a seller to terminate the listing agreement.  Some suggested that in the Georgia contracts, there was an early termination clause that allowed a seller to terminate a listing agreement at anytime without any penalties.

I always look at the contract when it comes to these things. In the 3/09/2007 version of the Georgia Association of REALTORS® listing contract I only see the following:

17. Seller Default. Seller acknowledges that Broker will be damaged if Seller breaches this Agreement by terminating this Agreement early or otherwise defaulting hereunder. Such damages shall include, without limitation, the cost of advertising and marketing the Property and Broker's lost commission(s). Seller shall be responsible for paying Broker the damages it suffers as a result of Seller's breach. In addition, Seller shall also pay all costs, fees and charges for removing the listing from any multiple listing service.

I read this as meaning that if the seller terminates the listing agreement early, they are liable for the marketing costs and the lost commission of the selling broker.  That's a pretty heavy penalty to consider.

This is in contrast to the Buyer's Brokerage Agreement that buyers sign when working with a buyer's agent. This contract states:

15. Early Termination. Broker or Buyer shall have the right to terminate this Agreement at any time by giving the other party written notice;

The difference between the two agreements is a pretty significant.

We always offer an "easy exit guarantee".  I hand the seller a signed listing termination form when I take a new listing.  If at any time the seller is not happy with my services, all they have to do is add their signature to mine and they are out of the agreement. No questions asked.

It's really difficult to help a seller who has lost confidence in you.  The bad energy of a captive seller just isn't worth it.   Fortunately, I've never had anyone use it yet. 

Have you ever had a client back out of a contract and then go after them for the commission?  I usually tell a buyer that a seller can always go after them for specific performance instead of only taking their earnest money.  Until recently, I had never considered that an agent can pursue a non-performing party for the commission. 

The father of a client of mine asked me about the worst case scenario of making an offer and then not being able to go forward.  He wanted to know what could happen if his daughter couldn't go through with the contract for whatever reason. 

I went over the earnest money scenarios and being sued for specific performance. He was comfortable with that.

But then he brought something up that I had never even thought about or knew about.  He had read the contract very carefully and pointed out a clause about owing a commission if one party failed to perform.  He wanted to make sure that his daughter  wouldn't be on the hook for paying a real estate commission if for some reason his daughter just decided that she couldn't go ahead with the sale.

He pointed to the clause in our contract that is highlighted below. 

I guess I never bothered to read that part of the contract.  I just figured that if it didn't close, I didn't get paid.  I'm not a very litigious person so I never thought about suing someone for a commission.  For an agent, this is a pretty nice clause.  For a nervous first time buyer, this is a pretty scary possibility.  On a $200,000 home, that could be a $12,000 lawsuit.

I told my client that in all of my years, I had never heard of an agent pursuing a commission from a buyer who backed out of a contract.  I had to actually write a special stipulation in the contract for him to be assured that that wouldn't happen to his daughter.

Have you ever sued a client for a commission after they failed to perform on the contract? Would you even consider it?

I hear a lot of doom and gloom about the real estate market.  I like to be up to date on the general market conditions.  I read the monthly numbers that are put out by the MLS and I read all the national updates by the NAR.  The FMLS numbers for April said that sales were down by 15% over the previous year. That sounded pretty bad to me. Many buyers are hearing the same thing and are expecting to find bargains out there.

I've been working with a few buyers in the East Cobb area and we have found it difficult to find a suitable home.  When making appointments to show homes, there always seems to be a few that have just gone under contract.  There also doesn't seem to be many homes coming on to the market lately.

I did some number crunching with a few MLS searches in the areas that I do business in, most of the north Atlanta area.  I looked at the number of active listings vs. the number that are currently pending sale or the number that were sold in May. 

Overall, the numbers look pretty good. There are around 9000 active listings. Around 3000 are pending sale or have sold in the month of May.  That seems like a lot of sales to me.  I haven't ever done this before so I really don't have anything to compare it to.  But I did see some agents in some out of state markets say that they have been seeing only 1 or 2% of the active listings actually selling in the last month.

I'm just glad that things are selling around my part of the world.  I'm hoping that the slow down in other areas and rising interest rates don't hurt us in the future.

Many of my clients like to know how homes in a particular neighborhood have increased in value over the years.  Unfortuanately, our MLS data only goes back a few years.  But we do have access to the data in the tax records. 

It's fun to play around with the data in order to have it give you some useful information.

I helped a buyer a few days ago by pulling up all the home sales in a particular neighborhood.  The tax records went back to 1983.  I was able to do a sort on the data and have a nice picture of increasing prices over 25 years.  I can then export this data into an Excel spreadsheet and make a nice graph to show the rate of appreciation.  This data can all be emailed to my client.

 As an agent, I have some nice tools to work with. It helps my clients make better decisions. 

This Page Only All Records

Many buyers ask me about how properties taxesdiffer in various counties and cities around the metro Atlanta area. There is a big difference between some counties.  The difference between taxes in Fulton county vs. neighboring Forsyth county is very significant.  Sometimes there's a big difference depending on whether or not you reside within city limits.  City taxes for the city of Atlanta and Decatur are quite high. 

A few counties give big exemptions to senior citizens.  A person in Cobb county living in a $500,000 home will probably will pay less than $1000 in property taxes if they are 65 or older.  Forsyth county also has a great deal for senior citizens.

I found a great chart that helps you calculate and compare property taxes for the various localities around Atlanta.  Go to AtlantaCommunities.com and you find the chart that I put part of below.  At the top is an explanation on how to calculate taxes.  It also has the homestead exemption amounts.  For more information about specifics, go to each county's tax assessor website.

Fulton County Tax Assessor 

DeKalb County Tax Assessor

Cobb County Tax Assessor

Gwinnett County Tax Assessor

Forsyth County Tax Assessor

Hall County Tax Assessor

I just saw this on Good Morning America this morning and it just made my day.

A plain, geeky looking guy who has a job at a cell phone warehouse always just wanted to sing opera.  He got a chance to do it before a large audience on a British TV show that I guess is the equivalent of American Idol.

Just watch this video and get inspired.

It reminds me of when an unknown, ordinary person finds their voice in blogging and writes something truly amazing.  You just sit there and say "Wow!!"

I often get asked whether it is worth it to purchase owner's title insurance when buying a home.  I always say YES.  I like to tell the story of what happened to a group of homeowners in a little subdivision, Anne Place,in Cobb County Georgia.

A man in Cobb County had inherited over 50 acres of land from his grandmother.  It just so happens that he married a lady who had the same name as his grandmother. Unfortunately they divorced and he had moved out of state. 

His ex-wife, pretending to be the grandmother who had the same name, went ahead and sold the land to a developer.  They did a title search and assumed that she was the owner since her name  was the same as the name still on the deed.

The developer went ahead and built 59 homes on the land. Everyone assumed they had clear title to their property.

Then one day the ex-husband, the real owner, came back to town to find that there were now  59 homes on his land. 

As you can imagine, there was a huge legal battle.  The people with owner's title insurance were made whole while the ones without title insurance had a huge problem.

Larry Feldman, a real estate attorney in Atlanta, told me that last year there were $40,000,000 in title insurance claims in Georgia alone.  Owner's title usually costs around one dollar per thousand dollars of coverage.  So a policy for a $300,000 home would cost $300.  This is a one time fee that I think is really worth it.

How does one find other websites that might link back to their site?  One method is to find out where the high ranking sites for your term are getting their links.  Just do a little reverse engineering.

This is where having the Google toolbar installed comes in handy. I just wrote about doing this earlier today. 

After you have the Google toolbar installed, do a search for the term that you are competing for.  Let's say that we want to be competitive for "Las Vegas real estate". At the top of the search engine results page (SERP), you'll see how many possible results there are, in this case, over 13 million. That's a pretty competitive term.

Go to the first "organic" result and click on it to go to that web page.

You'll see that the toolbar PageRank for this page is a 4. If you hold the cursor over the green bar you'll see that number pop up.  Click on that little triangle to the right of the green bar and when the menu list opens, click on "Backwards Links".

You'll now have a SERP that lists some sites that link to the site we are spying on.  In this case 181 links are showing.  Google only shows a small fraction of the total number of sites linking back.  No one knows for certain why they choose the particular links that they show.  Some think that they are random on purpose.

Now, just start going down the list and visit each site that is linking back.  See if it might be worth contacting those sites and getting a link back to your own site.  Let's click on the first result, Nevada Golf Property.

You'll notice that this site has a PageRank of 3. Down at the bottom they have a "submit a site" button.  Click on that and see what it takes to get a link.  This is a reals.com site which charges a fee.  Some don't charge anything. Many just require a link back to them.

Go back to the the SERP for the backlinks search and continue  clicking on each result to visit more pages.  Take note of the PageRank of these.  Make notes of the ones that you think you might be able to get a link from.  Sometimes you stumble upon a great directory that you had never heard of.  Sometimes you find other webmasters who are knowledgeable and open to exchanging links.

Check the back links of the pages that have very high PageRank.  See if you can figure out how they acquired it.  Sometimes as you drill deeper and deeper, you'll find sites that you would never  have found any other way.

Do this exercise for the first 20 results for a particular search phrase and you'll end up with an endless supply of linking possibilities.

I hear that reciprocal linking isn't what it used to be so I wouldn't spend too much time with it. But I have found this technique of checking backlinks to be very useful in discovering special directories and other sites that might offer the possibility of one way links back to your site.  It's much easier acquiring links from someone who is already linking to others.  You don't have to sell them on the idea. 

I did this five years ago to get things started.  Now I just wait for others to contact me requesting a link.