The Feed Bag
Friday Feed Bag
June 20th, 2008 The Feed Bag atholkay No Comments »
The shiny stuff for the week…
Check out this photoshopped lawn at Photoshop Disasters. Go-go Clone Tool.
The Subprime Primer. Warning stick figures using foul language, funny as hell though. Hat Tip Inman Blog.
Teresa Boardman What Do Agents Really Want? Touches on the key insight that agents sell real estate services, and that brokerages sell real estate support services to agents. Know the difference. Bigger can be good, but not always better.
Mike Farmer at Bigger Pockets. To Over-Do or To Under-Do? - That Is The Real Estate Investment Question. I’ll stand by my comment in the comments – everything needs to be functional.
RE: Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut Bank of America. Read about the special personal mortgage deal from Countrywide, the $70,000 campaign contributions from Bank of America, and how he excitingly introduced the Sentate bill to bailout the Countrywide defaulting loans. I’m seriously starting to think democratic government is just the PR and the Complaints Departments for the actual owners of the country.
Cheese Rolling… it must be damned tasty cheese is all I can say.
..and you’ve been fed.
The Friday Feed Bag
June 6th, 2008 The Feed Bag atholkay No Comments »
The weekly wrap up of all I found shiny.
Darren Rowse shows how to make a time lapse video with a camera.
Frank Llosa explains why the longer a house sits unsold, the less it gets for a final sales price. Days On Market
When I first read this post I immediately went into pooh-pooh mode, but bit my tounge because I happen to like the writer. Why would anyone spend $25 to use this lame photo editor when you could pick up last years decent one for the same price. Then I tied to write a post about some of the software I’ve started using and realized seeing damn DOS windows, and yes I said DOS windows, opening up and hearing the hard drive sound like it’s trying to saw wood, just isn’t for everyone either. So wander over and watch Lani’s Picnik video and see if it gets you started. Photography is a journey.
<—— Here’s one of the those “DOS window” results. I love the relaxed feel the photo has with natural light without that HDR look. I’ll post on this technique eventually, but I’m still working on the finer details.
Housechick says “Photos Matter A Lot”. I’m not going to disagree. 
Craig Schiller is one of Americas foremost staging experts, well worth the visit to read Why Isn’t My Home Selling?
The famous Tim Conway “Elephant Story” hijacking of the Carol Burnett Show. (5 Minutes)
A small taste of French Culture. Ailzee singing “J’en Ai Marre”. I believe it’s a song about being generally fed up with things in general and taking a long hot bath. (4 Minutes)
It’s so easy even a 3 year old can do it! (2:45 Minutes)
…and you’ve been fed.
Friday Feed Bag
May 30th, 2008 The Feed Bag atholkay No Comments »
The round up of shiny things this week.
Seeing the quality is up so high these days, I’ve come to the conclusion Jeff Brown has a ghostwriter :-) Wishin’ & Hopin’ Ain’t Gonna Get It San Diego (California) Real Estate Investors
Kris Berg reruns something I didn’t catch the first time around. One Man’s Junk Fees.
Sellisus – You Be The Judge: Time of the Essence Closing Date
Crash test on a Chinese truck. One notes the special crumple zone protecting the cargo area. (30 seconds)
Ines at Agent Genius chats about the Coldwell Banker Sale. Does offering a discount make you a discount brokerage? Hmmm.
Jeremy Esland’s post about TuFuse at the Flickr group for Real Estate Photography has kicked off about three nights of messing about. If your HDR attempts all suck like most of mine do, TuFuse may just be the answer.
Speeding Car. Bowling Ball. Ramp for Ball. “A hell of a bad idea”. (1 Min)
…and you’ve been fed.
Friday Feed Bag - Gas Price Creme Couch Rights Kiss Death
May 23rd, 2008 The Feed Bag atholkay 2 Comments »
Here’s the shiny bits for the week…
I guess it’s stating the obvious, but Dan Green uses pretty graphics to explain why The Oil-to-Mortgage-Rates Chain Reaction is bad. Oil go up is the bad.
Douglas Heddings states the obvious, but some people are so pig headed, that it bears endless repeating until it finally sinks in. Grossly Overpriced Property…The Kiss of Death
Bigger Pockets – My Advice? Buy a FourPlex Hey it’s tempting as hell, just one problem… I’d be living in a fourplex.
Ardell at Rain City Guide – What Are Negotiating Rights After Inspection of House? The short answer is not a lot. At this point you’re in kinda deep into the process and discovering nasty things on inspections can be like someone just pulled your beer goggles off halfway through naked fun time. Your “rights” are either to pull out, or finish up anyway.
Larry Lohrman at Photography for Real Estate just launched another eBook The Business of Real Estate Photography: e-book/Start-up Kit Now For Sale I haven’t got it yet, I’m hoping this fawning linkage gets me a free copy. Failing that, I’ll pay for it. I’ve learned a lot from Larry over the last year, so worth it as tip money if nothing else. 
If you haven’t found a copy of Blue Harvest yet, and you’re either a Star Wars, or Family Guy fan, you have to get it. Have to have to have to. Mandatory, as in not optional.
The Blue Harvest version of escaping from the trash compactor on the Death Star…
I keep telling my daughters that every single image of women used in advertising is photoshopped. Just in case you think small tweaks are all we’re talking about, check what is possible to do in editing. (3 min) Hat Tip Mortgage Cicerone.
Mass Suicide of Cadbury Creme Eggs. (20 seconds)
Mass Suicide of Cadbury Creme Eggs – Special Full Horror Directors Vision Edit (1 min)
…and you’ve been fed.
Friday Feed Bag
May 16th, 2008 The Feed Bag atholkay 1 Comment »
Short and sweet…
10 Questions Before Showing Virginia Short Sales from Frank Llosa.
and equally good… Are Short Sales Fake Listings? from John Lockwood.
The Friday Feed Bag
May 9th, 2008 The Feed Bag atholkay 4 Comments »
Here’s the shiny things that caught my eye in the last week…
I deep sixed the Bloodhound RSS feed months back, but Russell was one of the few individual feeds from Bloodhound I subscribed to. Russell writes upon occasion, but somehow each piece is… well… an occasion. So, anyway, absolutely no drama behind the scenes here whatsoever… Scene One, Scene Two.
Jessica Beganski – If You Ain’t Been Pre-approved - You Ain’t Shoopoo
Kevin Boer has the smoking gun on the Evil Trulia Widget of World Domination.
Jeff Brown… blah blah blah, you know the drill, just go visit the wise one being wise. 
David Lereah awakes from his coma. Sits up and asks what day it is. If you don’t get why this is funny, catch up to the plot via Jonathan Millers handy dandy graph of NAR humor.
Good news, Zip Realty only loses 7.3 Million Dollars. Seriously, it’s good news.
A nice post on Grow-A-Brain… How to Stay Married & Love It.
Proof that watching Lord of the Rings influences real world dangerous acts…
…and you’re been fed.
Friday Feed Bag
May 2nd, 2008 The Feed Bag atholkay No Comments »
A weekly round up of all that was shiny…
Feeling uneasy about easements? Housechick catches a good one in This Is Why You Always Read The Prelim.
Amy Bergquist uses a lot of numbers to say “sales are down” in the Greater Hartford area. But hey, if you need the numbers… More on Housing Market Conditions in Greater Hartford
Jay Thompson started NAR Wisdom in a fit of frustration with the National Association of Realtors. We all thought he was tilting at windmills until some of the NAR bigwigs started paying attention and actually commenting. In any case,when you find Jay saying good things about the Chief Economist at NAR, it’s probably something very good happening. I for one agree with him.
Likewise Jim Duncan posted on the same thing with Surprised that Yun’s candor wasn’t noticed.
Morgan Brown talks about the glut of vacant homes on the market in The lights are on but nobody’s home… I just wonder where all the people that lived in the homes went. :-/
Need laughing baby videos? Just Say No To Crack has a bunch of the best. I defy you to watch and not laugh.
Family Guy does Star Wars… (1 minute)
The SUPER rich and how they played a part in the global credit crisis yada yada yada. A BBC documentary, long at 58 minutes, but hey, what’s on TV anyway. I did watch it all the way through, quite interested and well done.
The famous King of the Hill real estate episode… hat tip Zebra.
…and you’re been fed.
Friday Feed Bag
April 11th, 2008 The Feed Bag 1 Comment »
A few things caught my eye this week.
Online photo editing software Photoshop Express. Give it a whirl. Not all the bells and whistles of Photoshop, but quite a few of the basics. Free and from Adobe so its official as it gets.
Is blogging prospecting? Were Point and Counterpoint with Jonathan Dalton and Chris Johnson.
Linda Davis is always great at pointing out the blindingly obvious that somehow eludes me. Ye gods the price of oil. Thats gonna be a factor at closing.
Russell Shaw with What Do I Do Now is going to be one of the best posts of the year.
Any month I get less than 110k in net commissions (my share) we are paying for the privilege of being in business. In the 4th quarter (and therefore my first quarter earnings are down, as well) we were grossing around 30 - 35k a month in commission income. We were paying 75 - 80k a month to get to sell real estate.
Oh its fun, but not so much fun that anyone would want to keep doing it for long if that part wasnt going to change.
Well worth a read, and its less doom and gloom than you would think from my teaser quote. Also its nice to think Im doing better than Russell did last quarter.
Japanese design for light in small houses. Hat tip Mariana Wagner. (About 5 mins, but good.)
The famous Japanese Spa Prank. Its a little blurry, but trust me on this one, just stick with it. It gets funnier and funnier as it goes on. (5 mins) Tell me this is not the spookiest thing youve ever seen. Wonder how many of these guys died of cancer. (1 min) and youve been fed.
Friday Feed Bag
April 4th, 2008 The Feed Bag No Comments »
A quick collection of all that was shiny
Daniel grills Lawrence Yun and serves him with a minty sauce. Daniel likes Dr. Yun. Im tending to agree with Daniel. Yun is doing a better and better job, cleaning up the huge PR disaster that was Lereah.
If the Department of Commerce was really relying on Lereah for advice, no wonder the Fed et al seem to have been so blindsided by the housing slump.
Craig Schiller is spot on with understanding that a home for sale is just a product in a market. Product presentation is everything. They dont serve food up in shoe boxes at restaurants. Well maybe you could fit kids sneakers in a Big Mac box, but thats not the point.
Need a secret passage in your home? Or just want to have a way to trap yourself in the finished basement when the power goes out? Freshome has the scoop.
Larry Lohrman recaps the most basic real estate photography rules.
Ive been mildly whining about the National Debt for a few months now. Suddenly Im seeing this issue all over the news lately like its some kind of new discovery no one has stopped to consider. Seriously, weve gone from 5 to 9 Trillion in the hole since Bush took office. To think Republicans bitch about tax and spend Democrats. LMAO. Anyway, Bigger (but empty) Pockets ponders Is the United States going broke?
Theres Only One Man Who Would Give Me The Raspberry.
Best to not dangle your legs in the water (3 mins)
911 (1 minute)
Oldie but goodie computer prank (2 min)
And youve been fed.
The Feed Bag - Fraud Playboy White People Bear Sterns Eviction Photoshop
March 21st, 2008 The Feed Bag No Comments »
The weekly wrap up of all that I found shiny
How many people were at the game? Lots and lots and lots. No empty seats at all. Diario Sportivo AS: I Wasnt Expecting The Spanish Inquisition at Photoshop Disasters Blog. A new guilty pleasure.
Okay so maybe a blog about photoshop mistakes isnt really a guilty pleasure. I just said that to encourage clicking through. So heres a real guilty pleasure
Stuff White People Like. I kid you not. I was worried I was going to be potentially offended, but clicked through and discovered well that I liked it. In fact I liked a whole lot of it. Im almost ready to come out of the closet and announce I am a white person, just not today. Meanwhile Ill dream of hosting a Dinner Party.
Maureen Francis at MiOakland County #1 Rule in Home Staging . . . No Playboy Bunnies! Um yeah I just linked to have an excuse to use a playboy bunny as a legitimate contextual image. Apparently some old people find images of playboy bunnies offensive. Lets face it though, times have changed and Playboy Bunnies seem kitsch now. Kinda like the paintings of women on the noses of WWII bombers. Better than ballet though. You would think women dancing around in skimpy coustumes would be hawt, but ballet is a truck of fail on that account. Sorry Kelley.
But yeah Maureen is correct that neutralizing your home is important. I dont think it should be sterile of humanity, but collections of anything need to be culled down.
Link to video of a Baltimore Landlord trying to evict a tenant that hasnt paid rent from the moment they moved into the apartment. Watch as the forces of justice are thwarted by a simple little trick that will have you screaming into pillows. Hat tip Jessica Beganski at Real Real Estate in Connecticut.
One of Realtor Magazines vaulted 30 under 30 gets nailed for fraud. Lots and lots of fraud. Awww but shes cute.
The Real Estate Bloggers ponder if Fed Chairman Bernake is upside down in his house in Washington.
Much of the financial chaos of the week came from the collapse of Bear Sterns. Coverage is up at AZ Mortgage Guru, Matrix and Lenderama. Following along is a selection of short videos showing how I really think everyone was caught by surprise at the speed Bear Sterns went down in a flaming heap.
Jim Cramer gets Bear Sterns slightly wrong. Slightly.
Backpedalling slightly. Slightly.
A pesky blogger pokes around the whole thing.
and youve been fed.
