Inna Hardison-ha media group Design, Printing, Web

They say a picture is worth a thousand words... When it comes to real estate photos, depending on the commission associated with the sale of a property, we can probably translate each of those words into a few Benjamins.

There are fabulous photographers on AR giving members advice on just how to take that awe-inspiring photo of a dwelling that one might fall in love with; great advice on what sort of camera to buy, basic editing techniques and so much more, all going towards the all-important first impression...

Some choose their IDX providers based on how the property photos will be displayed to the buyers and are willing to pay top dollar for the ones that can provide the best presentation...

What if you were one of those agents or brokers who has gone through the trouble to do all the right things, acquired just the right camera, learned PhotoShop, got a Cadillac of IDX providers and signed up for all the premium Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia et al services to have your listings with their beautiful photos appear at the top of the searches... ?

What if you had spent thousands of dollars getting to this point only to realize that NONE of it makes the slightest bit of difference? How pissed would you be if upon uploading your high resolution photos, where a potential buyer can see every vein in the granite countertop, every doorknob that you meticulously polished is reflecting the love previous owners put into the home, where your landscape photos of the surroundings make one feel the crisp blue of the Atlantic...only to realize that your potential customer will be looking at a tiny thumbnail?

If you are a member of the Daytona Beach Association of Realtors and submit your photos to the DB MLS - NO MATTER who your IDX is provided by, and no matter how large the photos you sent in with your listings - the consumer is looking at 290 by 218 pixel images you so painstakingly took. Take a minute and scroll through Daytona area listings via Realtor.com or any other engine consumers may use, even your own search option on your site, and you will be looking at itty bitty photos.

Navigate to Flagler area, or South Florida or quite possibly any place else in the US, and if you click on enlarge photos - the thumbnails generally speaking will, in fact, get larger. Except for the 22 mile stretch of beautiful coastline that is the greater Daytona Beach Area.

For the ones curious enough to know why that is, here is my take on it so far. In a few short words, the DB Board of Realtors technology officer or whatever the official title is has no clue whatsoever about technology. We have been designing a few sites for a local brokerage firm, and once we installed the new IDX (the very expensive but cool Diverse Solutions type) we realized that the images in the slide show stayed tiny. We called IDX folks and they referred us to the board, as they get their feeds directly from them. The above-mentioned person at the Board had no clue about what a pixel meant and insisted that the only limitation as to the size of images they impose on the realtors is a 2 MEG max file size, but outside of that, it's someone else's problem.

So we called their contracted MLS provider, Innovia to see what they could tell us, thinking that, at the very least, the people there would know the difference between file size and dimensions, and surprisingly - they did. A very nice man by the name of Austin found a checkbox or something to that effect that indeed limited the output of all images to feeds to their thumbnail size, and promptly put in the work order to have it lifted.

My husband and partner in crime is a sweet-natured guy, so he figured all the realtors here have been somewhat cheated for at least a year and a half of being able to properly show their listings to consumers, so he called the board to let them know about this very simple fix and that it would, indeed, be resolved for EVERYONE.

Upon hearing the great news, the technology officer promptly explained to my hubby that he had no right to do that, and that we CAN"T have our feed display larger images than anyone else, and berated him for trying... She then promptly contacted the MLS folks, Innovia, and put a stop to the work order.

It took a few threats, and a few more calls, and might still take a trip down to Daytona Board of Realtors office tomorrow to settle the dust, but Innovia just let us know that the IDX's will in fact start displaying larger photos shortly. So for any of you who work in the area, just in case the incompetence wins yet again, if you have an issue with displaying thumbnails only to your prospects, speak up in the comments, and we will use your names in addition to a few we already have to get it fixed for everybody.

In the meantime, I wish MLS access was no longer necessary to sell real estate, or at the very least that there were options. I find it offensive that the Association's Board took no steps on their own to resolve this issue and when we helped get it solved found it imperative to let us know who the boss is. The way I see it, the boss is a person sitting on the other end of the computer screen looking for properties in the Daytona Area with a magnifying glass. That's who cuts the check or not.

So again, to any members of the Daytona Association of Realtors - speak up in the comments.

Thanks all!
PHOTO by Jon Hardison.

Mr. President:

When you were campaigning for green jobs, cleaner air, more energy efficiency in our cars, homes and industrial and commercial buildings - we rallied behind you. We welcomed an ideal of rebuilding our economy by once again manufacturing stuff, whether cars, homes or new technologies. We welcomed, too, your promise of tighter oversight of our financial institutions upon whose good graces would depend our ability to purchase those new cars, homes or to help a fledgling business devoted to new green technologies. We were hoping that no bit of political or legislative nonsense would ever again prevent those who are worthy from being able to enjoy the American dream of Home Ownership, and that the consumer opting to live in a green home would have no more trouble obtaining a loan than a person choosing to buy a Smart Car over one buying a Hummer.

We thought that in order for this country to recover economically, the housing market needed a boost and agreed with your vision to make it happen.

So the bailed out banks got an influx of cash to lend to achieve that very goal of recovery. Then the HVCC was introduced into the mix. If you've been too busy to pay attention to the consequences of this rather benign-sounding bit of consumer protectiveness, the Home Valuation Code of Conduct, here is a brief from a consumer's point of view.

Michelle B. lives in Flagler County, Florida, an area considered a distressed market. She is an environmentalist. She wants to live in a Green home, just the right size for her and her husband, with no wasted space. She wants to have full house solar and not depend on burning fossil fuels. She wants to plant her own little organic garden in her yard. An ideal home for her would be 800 or so square feet of smart living space, a 1-bedroom country house. She finds a local builder who builds certified green homes, and they embark on drawing plans for her new dream home, just the way she envisions it, only to learn that the only properties that appraise in the area have to be 3-bedroom, 2-bath homes, and that there is no appraiser working for the Appraisal Management Company the bank uses who would be willing to spend the extra 10 minutes to acknowledge any energy-efficient features as adding value to the home.

The irony of it is, Michelle B. currently occupies a 2,400 square foot home that is simply too big for her needs, and consumes too much in a way of resources. She wants to do the right thing for all the right reasons. She wants to build the kind of home you campaigned about. The kind of home that Energy Efficient Mortgages were designed to help finance. But they won't, because the people the entire transaction depends on, value these properties from behind a computer with nary a drive by inspection to speak of - after all they are only getting half the money they are accustomed to, so they could be effectively managed, and so the bank couldn't influence the outcome of the all-important appraisal.

So with all things being equal, as much as one might like to build a new home, especially if it's green and on a smaller footprint, the frustration associated with trying to finance the purchase may not be worth it. In fact, it appears that if anyone wants to buy in an area dominated by short sales, purchasing anything other than a short sale will not work out - the home will simply not appraise.

It used to be that the market value hinged on how much a buyer was willing to pay for something. Now, it is dictated by an underpaid appraiser's opinion of value. If the housing market is to recover, does it really make sense for us to keep devaluing dwellings in places where things are tough enough already? To trample on the idea of the American dream of home ownership under the auspices of protecting the very consumer whose dreams we can no longer fulfill?

Logic tells me that no code of conduct alone can make one act ethically. Experience tells me that for as long as we are corruptible, there will be those who are capable of violating these codes of conduct, so, at the end of the day, the consumer is no more protected by the additional red tape than they were before, but the dream of home ownership for so many across the country has just become a nightmare.

Hit the blogs, Mr. President - this is happening everywhere, and home buyers, those rare creatures willing to purchase a home, capable of purchasing a home, are the ones that are being pushed away by the very thing design to protect them. There has to be a better way to protect our money without destroying our dreams, Mr. President. This needs to be fixed, for the sake of thousands of people like Michelle across the country, for the sake of realtors and loan officers whose livelihoods depend on it, for the sake of all of us being able to build something again.

Disclosure: This blog was written with first hand knowledge of the difficulties financing a unique property built by my client, Florida Green Homes, LLC - a builder of certified green homes in North East Florida. www.myfloridagreenhome.com

Life, these last few years, has been a blur... Days and weeks flew by leaving behind uneven tracks of a car going too fast around a serpentine curve. The necessity of moving from New York post 9.11, forcing both, me and my husband, into the stormy seas of self-employment, left us crippled as parents to our two boys, with nary a bedtime story for the little one and only an occasional word of encouragement for the oldest. Kids get used to things, and a goodnight kiss eventually suffices to let them know they are loved, or so we hope.

The kids learned that we only had time for emergencies and things of utmost importance, and those were shared during dinner conversations. Last year, almost all things of utmost importance to our 16-year-old son revolved around his chemistry teacher, Sylvia Brady. Every joke she shared in class, every cute nick name she gifted one of her students, every anecdote were excitedly passed around the dinner table, along with the inevitable request for us to meet with her. The year ended with a rushed Christmas break, and the kiddo was through with chemistry. We had not met Ms. Brady. There was simply no time.

A few weeks ago, our son was helping Ms Brady fix some computer related issues in her classroom. He came home that day with somewhat of a concern that we may not get to meet her after all, as she could retire. "She is pretty old, you know, and she may not be at the school much longer..."

Looking back on my own childhood and struggling to recall any teachers, but one, who were more than dictators upon whose good graces depended the all important numbers on my transcript, I caved. The one teacher I had who made all the difference for me also taught chemistry, a subject I loathed so deeply I was not above cheating if it spared me the embarrassment of always getting it wrong. With her, I couldn't cheat. It was a relationship she had with each student where we were not inferior little people who needed to be taught something or rather for their own good - we were treated as equals, as adults, capable of their own thoughts and conclusions, even if we were wrong. That was a great year.

Last Thursday I went to see my son's old chemistry teacher at FPC, Ms. Sylvia Brady. I had to shake her hand, at the very least, and tell her something about the difference she made for my son, and the fact that the kids are all raving about her, and that it was probably a bad idea for her to retire, because let's face it, chemistry is no fun, unless kids can blow stuff up, which they can't for safety reasons, and formulas are just boring. She made kids love coming to class - she had a gift...

Sylvia Brady is 67 years old, so she tells me almost casually, as she towers over me and we shake hands. She has a slight limp, a result of a recent trip and fall incident in her classroom. She points to a scar on her forehead as forensic evidence of that fall. I tell her that my son talks about her incessantly, trying to explain my reason for being there without appearing insane. She nods. We sit in a large empty classroom. She graciously apologizes for the mess, pointing to a few stacks of paper lacking in symmetry on her desk, but the room is clean, and surprising devoid of any odors I recall from my days of chemistry classes.

I ask her why she chose to teach chemistry, or something to that effect.

We are interrupted by a knock on the door and an unannounced appearance of a teenage girl. In short order, I learn that Ms. Brady's classroom is home to any kid who has an extra five minutes to kill before their next class, or while waiting for a ride home. Throughout the next 45 minutes that I spend in this room, the kids wander in an out, and I get used to being interrupted. They come, give Ms. Brady a hug, and talk to her and each other. Some, have not been her students for years, but still they come. My son, it turns out, is one of those kids, a Ms. Brady groupie.

"If I won umpteen million dollars in a Florida Lottery - I would still teach this class," - she tells me. "This is my passion, corny as it sounds, and I love my kids..."

It is corny, I concede, but the way she greets each of the kids wandering through her classroom tells me it's genuine. She listens to each, with intense curiosity. She knows what classes they take and how they are doing in them. Sometimes, someone asks something or other chemistry related. Then, the kids make themselves comfortable, and listen.

I am puzzled now why someone who is so obviously happy would want to retire, but I keep it to myself for now, dreading learning the answer to the nagging question. Part of me already knows the obvious answer: "the schools are downsizing everywhere. I know that, I've been reading the papers for years. At least our district is not closing any schools. They may simply not have the money to hold on to teachers who are of retirement age, or, to put it bluntly, more likely to get sick..."

Ms Brady has been teaching chemistry for 32 years, most of them at our local school district. She had won numerous awards and accolades, none of which are displayed in her classroom - they don't matter in the grand scheme of things. She picks up a smart board from her desk and tells me that the school's been very good to her by giving her all this new technology.

Rebecca, one of the girls hanging out in the classroom at the moment, tells me that Ms. Brady had to rely on using a microphone after having thyroid surgery last year: "that's the kind of technology that makes her happy, the kind that allows her to continue teaching the subject she loves - a $30.00 microphone when her voice couldn't carry... Everything else, she can live without, gladly, as would the kids, so long as they have Ms. Brady."

There is no glimmer of understanding of economic woes facing the nation and the school district in the eyes of the teens in this classroom. It's not subject to a mathematical formula, or an issue of a grade on some piece of paper. To these kids, and all the others Ms. Brady taught over the years, it's a simple matter of decency, and they are simply too young to understand that the good does not always triumph. It's just part of the idealism they picked up from their mentor, Ms Sylvia Brady.

I hope you get to stay, Ms. Brady. And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being there for all these kids. Thank you, for being there for mine - he is a better person for having known you.

Inna Hardison is the owner of Ha Media Group, a full service small kick-ass ad agency.
For all your printing needs, visit www.hamediashop.com and get grate quality Postcards, Business Cards, Flyers and more at awesome prices. For pring and web design, see our design portfolio at www.teamhardison.com

Copyright (C) 2008, inna hardison. please, don't steal from the starving artists, it's illegal and well, just plain freakin' wrong!
:-)

I love to drive, I really really do.... So much so that I once drove by myself from Palm Coast, Florida to San Fran, and enjoyed every minute of it (well, I could have done without the hitch-hiker...)

Now, I am spending so much time behind my keyboard that I hardly ever leave the house, save for an occasional trip to see a client or to the store. So when I was asked a few days ago to run an errand for a friend which involved taking off for an hour without feeling guilty about it, I was all for it. It was a rather silly little favor that took me from 12 miles inland across the bridge to A1A. For those of you who don't know, A1A is our scenic highway along the Atlantic coast, and is absolutely beautiful. During tourist season, it's bustling with traffic of all kinds, from bikini-clad sun revelers to bikers in their leather gear, and everything in between... Bob Marley blasting from car stereos, cause there is nothing better than the beach and Bob Marley; margaritas dripping condensation onto napkins with love notes scribbled on them at the beachside cafes, and the many fisherman casting for fish amidst a sea of pelicans and seagulls...

The last time I was at the beach was indeed during the summer, or so I realized upon crossing the bridge to an eerily quiet beach-side town. No cars high- jacking the view of the ocean, no bikini-clad youths, and no Bob Marley. I slowed down to a comfortable 30, just because I wanted to take it all in, slowly. I needed so desperately to inhale enough oysters and seaweed to last me until it warms up enough to take the pups to the pink coquina sands... I needed to have enough time to have the calm winter blue of the Atlantic remind me why I am here, and how glorious, indeed, this place is. No matter what happens, this vast body of water will always beckon me. I am, alas, a child of the sea, even in times when I don't need a compass to keep from getting lost...

So, wherever in the Universe you happen to be, take a drive to a spot that beckons you... To a place where it's ok to laugh, cry, and be utterly alone and filled with magic... You know where it is - go find it.

Mine is a skip and a hop away, and for that, I am eternally greatful...

As some of you know, our company now offers full service offset printing, where orders can be placed online 24/7, files uploaded, and your nifty new shiny pieces of marketing collateral show up at your door within a week or so. We invested quite a bit of time, money and soul into this addition to our suite of services, and are feeling pretty darn good about the whole thing.

Yesterday, we got the bright idea of sharing this bit of news with real estate and related industry professionals in Florida via a cute little email we drafted. Let me backtrack here for a sec - my fault, I drafted it, the hubby just made it look all pretty. We dropped it into a broadcast service, clicked send, and off it went - to a scarily large number of email addresses.

Shortly thereafter, we get a VERY irate email from one Florida Realtor, who shall remain unnamed SCREAMING AT US IN ALL CAPS, and I quote: "WELL IM SURE NOT THE HELL FILLED WITH OPTIMISM ABOUT A NEW MUSLIM PRESIDENT THAT WENT TO A HATE FILLED CHURCH FOR 20 YEARS! YOU OBVIOUSLY ARE - AND YOU SHOULD LEARN THE NUMBER ONE RULE IN BUSINESS - DO NOT TALK POLITICS OR RELIGION!! FOR THAT REASON I WOULD NEVER USE OR RECOMMEND YOUR COMPANY. TAKE ME OFF YOUR LIST."

In the interest of full disclosure, here are a few paragraphs from the message she received:

"Season's Greetings from all of us at HaMediaShop.com.

There is something to be said for magic that is the Holiday Season in Florida. Warm enough to wear shorts, golf or fish and still have the twinkling lights of Christmas gracing our palm trees and evergreens.

For some, this Christmas Season is the toughest ever financially, but still most people are filled with the spirit of optimism and impatience for the New Year. The promise of a fresh start, the new President, the new business plan - we all resolve to do better, to try harder.

With the warmest wishes this Season to all of our Florida Realtors, here are a few tips that should help you make 2009 a great year, and of course, a holiday gift from all of us at hamediashop.com"

The rest of the message included some free suggestions on keeping in touch with clients and prospects and a discount offer on postcards from our store.

So I went back and read and re-read the message, and then it hit me: this person honestly and truly got this angry over two words: President, and Christmas. So here is my little message to the disgruntled person who would like to teach me a lesson by not doing business with me:

I am not religious, but have always referred to the little lights that make the universe a magical place every December as Christmas lights - nothing else would do! I say Merry Christmas to people I know and love this time of year - not to the exclusion of anything else, but because it is to me more an issue of tradition, one that has emotional and historical value. The email did include a few Happy Holidays references in addition to the one or two politically incorrect uses of "Christmas".

The fake evergreen in my living room is also called a Christmas Tree, and it has Christmas ornaments all over it, you know, the ones with Santa, and Angels, and Ginger Houses.

As for my reference to the New President - anyone coming in after a two term presidency would be a New President, last I checked, and I was by no means making a political statement of any kind with addressing that fact.

So to anyone who may get this email from us and chooses to be offended, by all means Do Not Use our services. Our first rule of business is to provide the best possible service for our clients. Our second rule of business is to remain human. If that means being politically incorrect and losing some business because of it, I can live with that.

Merry Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukah to all and Happy Festivus for the rest of us.

Copyright (C) 2008, inna hardison. please, don't steal from the starving artists, it's illegal and well, just plain freakin' wrong!
:-)

For AR only discounts on printing with hamediashop, see this blog, and save big bucks. Postcards, Business Cards, Flyers and more at awesome prices. Print, Design, Layout. www.hamediashop.com
See our design portfolio at www.teamhardison.com