Appraisal Podcasts

Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet

From the article:

“Blues icon B.B. King was once asked how he found his heart-warming, bone-chilling sound. “It’s simple,” he said. “I only steal from the best.”
After publishing more than 2 million words — online and print — we’re convinced that King was right. To become a good writer, one must first be a studious reader. (How else will you know whom to steal, er, borrow from?) So, in that spirit, we’ve compiled a list of some of GrokDotCom’s favorite Web copy resources in hopes that copywriters everywhere will steal the best tips from our colleagues, friends, and staff. “

France on Green Crusade

From the article:

France is trying to clean up its act, readying measures this week aimed at reversing its image as environmental laggard and making it a pioneer in the fight against global warming and other threats to the Earth’s well-being.

Yet environmental groups fear the measures, to be finalized at a conference Wednesday and Thursday, will be too watered down to make a difference in France’s carbon emissions and have little impact on worldwide efforts to reduce the pollution that is warming the planet.

President Nicolas Sarkozy isn’t letting those fears slow his push to raise France’s eco-profile.

Lenders Raise the Bar For Commercial Real Estate

From the article:

Commercial real-estate lenders, spooked by the collapse in residential housing, are reining in riskier loans on fears that underwriting standards were too loose.

During the last few months, lenders have been requiring significantly more equity to get projects rolling, while the cost of obtaining debt continues to shoot higher. Meanwhile, banks are avoiding making loans to commercial real estate on concerns about the quality of construction and development loans.

“Six months ago, it was money chasing deals. Now it’s deals chasing money,” said Larry Vogler, president of Prime Group Inc., a Chicago-based commercial real estate developer.

Subprime Mortgages Will Return, But With Some Changes

From the post:

Although “subprime” has become a four-letter word in the country’s collective lexicon and no one is sure when the credit crisis that was spawned by a meltdown in the risky lending sector will ease, mortgage bankers say you can count on this: Subprime shall return.

The article continues by outlining how the new subprime will look, noting the rebound is way off and that it will take some time for investor to regain their confidence in the product.

Productivity Boosters

Ran across a nice summary of 131 productivity boosters related to email, instant messenging, office applications, pdf-ing, phone and texting, and 23 “other” tools.  Is worth a look. There is bound to be something new to you on the list that may help manage your day better. From the blog post:

“Freelancers Appraisers often have to wear many hats: accountant, boss, quality control, marketing department, and beyond, which can leave you feeling like there’s just not enough time in the day to do everything you’d like. Fortunately, there are a number of tools designed to help you speed up the process of working. Check out these productivity boosters for documents, communications, and more.” 

Calculated Risk: Housing: Looking Ahead

In this interesting blog, the author makes an argument that we may be seeing signs of a bottom in housing . The post goes on to explain that we’ve still got to work through a lot of pain before housing markets really recover. However, in a turn of schizophrenia, the blogger also notes that in previous housing bubbles, we experienced 5-7 years of falling housing prices before they there was a significant uptick.