Keith Bennett

Is AR the WOW for agents? Both are based on a point system, based on experience. Just that in WOW one would slay a monster or another player to gain experience points to advance. Here we write blogs or comment to blogs posted by other players.....oh.... um, I mean agents..... Right, agents.

What part of my character should I enhance with my earned points! Yay I leveled up today! I now rank #3 in Santee, CA.

Does anyone care, does everyone know?

I am sure many do not know and that some just do not know that Columbia released their country's top-level domain names to the public. In other words we can register domain names such as "anything.co"

Why would we want a domain with .co? Well, .co could be short for COmpany or COrporation. I registered the one I wanted, but didn't get a few others that I really wanted. I am happy still. However, to get the really short ones, they wont last long.

I registered MLO.CO Why did I do this? Well, MLO for Mortgage Loan Originators and of course CO for company. I have been known to randomly register domain names and just hold them for future use. Mainly for hobby, but maybe I'll have time to turn them into something some day. If not, I will sell them.

Well, what got me thinking was that .co could take off just like .com did. Of course everyone is familiar with .com right! Well, once upon a time did anyone think .com would be as BIG as it is today? What about .co? maybe it is worth it just to buy one and hold it. Especially since I was able to get a 3 letter domain name. Good luck finding that with .com and .net. In fact, if you are going to get .net, why not say the hell with it, and get .co.

What is cool about MLO.CO <--- it rhymes! I also like how CO-CO-COLA sounds... Catchy right? Well, I was attempting to do the same, and I think I got close to it, and the best thing is... 3 letter domain name that rhymes with the domain extension!

This could be a forum for MLO's for example? This could be a loan business that uses MLO.CO for their website.

My point of course has nothing to do with my own domain, but just that it is available, look into it. You may find what you are looking for, if you don't find your .com.

Doing loans and Real Estate in Santee California seems fairly routine. However, I wanted to know how many agents there were out there, who is my competition?.....in my market....

Would you believe that there are 483,250 licensed real estate agents in the State of California? According to http://www.dre.ca.gov/gen_stats_09_10.html

Is that a lot? Well, yes!...... and thankfully.... No... I will explain later why it is so good.... That said, what other profession has that ratio? Just think about that for a minute? 1 agent for every 90 people. How many of those people are renters? How many of those people cannot qualify for a loan? 50%? I am not sure the exact number, but lets wipe out 50% just for the sake of argument.... Would it be realistic to say there is "now" 1 licensed agent per 45 people in the State of California? Maybe and maybe not, because there are how many inactive agents? I'm not sure about that either... But, for the time being I am only conducting surface level secondary research, so this is about as in-depth as I can go. I do want to dig much deeper to find some more firm statistics.

Though that may seem high, the rate is decreasing each month. One year ago this month there was 519,941 licensed agents and two years ago this month there was 542,267 licensed agents.

At this rate, we will soon shed some 100k licensed agents from where we were a few years ago, and with a higher population. I tend to be optimistic; when the market turns the remaining agents who stuck it out or even made the system work will be well positioned.... Are you using this market to your advantage? Are you keeping tabs on your competitors? I know I am....

I am not sure how many licensed agents who are also hold the MLO designation, but I can say that I will be in this category. With the new NMLS requirements, I am looking forward to seeing some room on that side of the fence....

See you in Santee, CA.

I was doing a Google search when I started to type in... How to get.... and then, as we all know, Google is very helpful in completing commonly conducted searches.

I stopped for a moment to take notice of what Google suggests what I may be looking for.

I do not normally pay attention to what these suggestions are, but then I thought it was funny. For a little while I remembered when I was younger, you know, in high school or even further back.... Middle School, or even elementry school. I think the majority of these suggestions have to do with childhood at some point in time. Well, maybe not all, hopefully not "how to get pregnant." So, in my search for "HOW TO GET QUALITY BACK LINKS," these were the most likely suggestions prior to completing my search string.

Most interesting was that "How to get a girl to like you" is at the #1 spot. Haha, I can see all men have the same question in their minds. We are confused about how women work. I am happily married w/ children, but I did take a moment to reflect way back into my past. Perhaps these were search suggestions for me, just 20 years too late!? Google really is smart! Crystal ball smart!

Well, on to my search about quality back links for my website!

I let my buyers into their future dream house in a upscale neighborhood. We took the standard tour and they decided this would be their new home. The offer was signed and submitted that night, $500k. Fast forward a few days, the offer was countered, we countered, and it was accepted for a little less than what my buyers wanted, but everyone was happy enough to move forward. Having the accepted offer, my buyers made the deposit into their escrow account. The inspection was set.

I arrived at the property first, then the inspector, (my buyers would come out later). We didn't enter the front door, we went directly to the backyard through the gate. The inspector and I spent enough time in the backyard talking about the property that my buyers arrived without notice. Though, oddly enough my buyers were able to enter the house through the front door. My buyers were not aware we were in the backyard, and much to their relief they noticed that we were at the property, (and they thought the door was wide open because we were there.)

"Oh, good, we thought the door was open for the entire week, good to see you guys are back here," my client said. There was a long pause....."uhhh, well, we actually entered the backyard from the gate, not the front door." More silence and alarming looks from everyone.

We dropped what we were doing to walk around the house to see if anything was out of the ordinary. Much to our surprise, in one of the bedrooms there was a fire-pit, sleeping bag, and some vodka bottles. Someone had made this vacant home their new home!

Now, most of this is not true... Actually the home was locked up nice and tight. I did open the front door with the key. But my clients did not know we were there. They did think the home was left open from the week prior. I just thought it was pretty funny, then I thought, hey something like this probably happens when homes are not locked up by agents after they leave....

They are buying the house, bums not included...