Fla. ranks 2nd in credit card delinquency - South Florida Business Journal:

Florida had the second-highest incidence of credit card delinquency in the country in the third quarter, at 1.47 percent. Only Nevada’s was higher, at 1.98 percent, according to the latest statistics from TransUnion.com.

The report looks at the ratio of bankcard borrowers who are 90 days or more delinquent on one or more of their credit cards.

Nationwide, the rate fell to 1.1 percent in the third quarter, down 5.98 percent from the previous quarter.

The lowest credit card delinquency incidence rates were found in North Dakota (0.66 percent), South Dakota (0.7 percent) and Alaska (0.73 percent).

Florida ranks fourth in credit card debt per borrower for the quarter totaling $6.361.

Nationwide, average credit card borrower debt fell to $5,612, down 1.87 percent from the previous quarter's $5,719, and down 1.71 percent from $5,710 in the third quarter of 2008.

"For the first time in 10 years, third quarter national delinquency rates showed a decrease from the previous quarter, indicating a departure from the usual seasonal patterns,” said Ezra Becker, director of consulting and strategy in TransUnion's financial services group, in a news release.

Becker noted the recession has caused consumers to keep debt to a minimum and bring debt repayment under control. In addition, many lenders have modified credit card rules and their fees in the third quarter in advance of the Credit Card Act, which will take effect in February. The act is designed to protect consumers from abusive practice and beefs up disclosure requirements.

Looking ahead, TransUnion sees the 90-day credit card delinquency rate remaining steady at 1.1 percent in the fourth quarter, with a possible increase in the beginning of next year.

South Florida, statewide home sales rise - South Florida Business Journal:

Existing home sales rose both in Florida and nationwide as the housing market continues to show signs of stabilization.

Statewide, year-over-year existing home sales shot up 45 percent last month, with a total of 15,160 homes sold, up from 10,444 homes sold in October 2008, according to Florida Realtors.

Between September and October, existing home sales increased 5.1 percent.

Florida's median sales price for existing homes last month was $140,300, down 17 percent from a year ago, when it was $169,700.

Sales of existing single-family homes in West Palm Beach rose the most in the tri-county area – up 36 percent, to 841 from 618. The median sales price also fell the least – down just 8 percent, to $243,600 from $264,600.

Existing home sales in Fort Lauderdale rose 32 percent in October, to 826 from 625 a year ago. The median sales price slid 16 percent, to $211,600 from $252,500.

Sales in Miami grew the least – up 26 percent, to 571 from 453 – while prices fell the most – down 28 percent, to $178,500 from $246,800.

Statewide existing condo sales rose to 5,398 in October, up 82 percent from 2,958 a year prior and up 6.1 percent over September. The median sales price of an existing condo in Florida fell 29 percent, to $105,200 in October from $147,900 a year ago.

Fort Lauderdale saw the biggest increase in sales of existing condo sales in the tri-county area in October – up 68 percent, to 926 from 551 a year ago. The median price fell 28 percent, to $83,200 from $115,200. West Palm Beach recorded a 59 percent hike in existing condo sales, to 766 from 481. The median price fell 20 percent, to $109,300 from $135,800. And in Miami, existing condo sales rose 47 percent, to 647 in October from 439 in the year-ago period. The median sales price of a condo in Miami fell 30 percent to $138,400 from $197,400.

Nationwide, exiting home sales in October jumped a record 10.1 percent as buyers continued to take advantage of the first-time homebuyers credit.

Patrick Newport, U.S. economist with IHS Global Insight, suggested in a news release that “sales will drop in the first quarter of 2010, payback from the first tax credit. Sales will take a second hit in the third quarter of 2010, payback from the second tax credit. Overall, sales in 2010 will be about the same as in 2009.”

Florida below average in ‘food insecurity’ - South Florida Business Journal:

As most of the nation prepares for a Thanksgiving feast comes a report from the Food Research and Action Center that Florida is below the national average in "food insecurity."

The term means that access to adequate food is limited by a lack of money and other resources.

Florida was 30th among the 50 states, with 12.2 percent of households food insecure while 4.9 percent had very low food security.

That means the food intake of some household members was reduced, and their normal eating patterns were disrupted because of the household’s situation.

The latest rankings, which come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ranked Mississippi the worst and North Dakota the best. The USDA monitors the extent and severity of food insecurity in U.S. households through an annual, nationally representative survey. This latest report presents statistics on households’ food security, food expenditures and use of food and nutrition assistance programs in 2008.

USDA found that 17 million households in the U.S., or 14.6 percent, were food insecure. The prevalence of food insecurity was up from 11.1 percent in 2007, and was the highest observed since the surveys were launched in 1995.

“As the recession hit, the number of Americans in households struggling against hunger skyrocketed to one in six last year, and it’s likely that the number is even higher today,” said Jim Weill, FRAC president. “Millions have lost jobs or seen their wages reduced over the past two years. While many more people are turning to the federal nutrition programs for help, those programs don’t reach enough people and their benefits often aren’t enough to stop hunger.”

Regionally, food insecurity was most prevalent in the South, intermediate in the Midwest and West and least prevalent in the Northeast.

CoreLogic: Florida No. 2 in mortgages under water - South Florida Business Journal:

Of the 4.5 million mortgages in Florida, nearly half were under water, and another 180,178 were nearly under water in the third quarter, according to a recently released report by First American CoreLogic.

All three South Florida markets ranked among the top 50 in the U.S. with mortgages in negative equity.

The Miami market ranked 23rd with 249, 491 of the 544,711 mortgages in negative equity. Another 268,050 were near negative equity, according to the report.

The Fort Lauderdale market ranked 31st with 237,728 out of the 458,091 mortgages under water and another 253,395 nearly under water.

The West Palm Beach market ranked 41st, with 151,418 of the 348,199 mortgages under water and another 164,114 nearly under water.

Nationwide, nearly 10.7 million or 23 percent of all residential properties with mortgages were in negative equity as of September. Another 23 million were approaching negative equity.

Combined, Florida and California accounted for 4.4 million or 42 percent of all negative equity loans, the report found.

CoreLogic said its data is based on a “proprietary model” that factors in loan amortization and utilization rates for home equity lines of credit, which it claims provides a more precise view of underwater borrowers.

Florida tax revenue falls 8.6% in Q3 - South Florida Business Journal:

Tax revenue across the country declined for the fourth consecutive quarter, according to a preliminary report issued Monday by the

Rockefeller Institute of Government.

In Florida, tax revenue fell 8.6 percent in the July-through-September period.

Sales taxes in the Sunshine State fell 8.1 percent.

For the 44 states reporting third quarter results, overall tax revenue declined 10.7 percent, year-over-year. The most significant drop was in the corporate income tax category, which fell 19.4 percent.

In Florida, the corporate income tax fell 11 percent.

Nationwide, personal income taxes fell 11.4 percent and sales taxes fell 8.2 percent.

The institute said it will issue a complete report on the third quarter in several weeks, when final U.S. Census data becomes available. It will also issue a further outlook on the remainder this year and for 2010.

Click here to read the full report.

Miami No. 45 on dangerous city list - South Florida Business Journal:

Miami safer than Orlando? That's what a newly released report by Washington, D.C-based

CQ Press finds.

The publication, which examined 2008

FBI statistics for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft, ranked Miami 45th, while Orlando came in 17th. Fort Lauderdale ranked 77th and West Palm Beach came in 53rd.

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The report looks crime rate rankings of cities of at least 75,000 residents. Topping the list of 393 cities is Camden, N.J., followed by St. Louis and Oakland, Calif. Detroit and Flint, Mich., round out the top five.

Other South Florida cities ranked include:

  • Miami Gardens: 35
  • Miami Beach: 42
  • Pompano Beach: 63
  • Hollywood: 144
  • Hialeah: 186
  • Miramar: 216
  • Plantation: 234
  • Davie: 248
  • Sunrise: 254
  • Pembroke Pines: 315
  • Boca Raton: 319
  • Coral Springs: 346

Download the complete list here.

Case-Shiller: Miami home prices up in September - South Florida Business Journal:

Miami home prices ticked up 0.05 percent in September over August, but remained down 16.2 percent, year-over-year, according to the latest

S&P Case-Shiller 20-city home price index.

The closely watched gauge of U.S. home prices rose 0.3 percent in September from August, the fifth straight monthly increase.

“We have seen broad improvement in home prices for most of the past six months,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, in a news release. “However, the gains in the most recent month are more modest than during the seasonally strong summer months. Fewer cities saw month-to-month improvements in September than in August in both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted figures.”

Las Vegas has some of the biggest housing drops, with a 28.6 percent fall, although Phoenix isn’t far behind, with a 21.8 percent drop.

No markets in the 20-city composite showed a housing price increase over the past 12 months.

Top 10 Tips For New Twitter Users - Center For New Media Studies

Top 10 Tips For New Twitter Users

Written By Marcelo Lewin

Your friends are on Twitter. Your son talks about Twitter. The news mentions Twitter every other minute. Even your mom is on Twitter. But did you know who’s on Twitter that can affect your business? Your competition.

It doesn’t matter what you do, what industry you are in or how big (or small) your company is, you should be on Twitter engaging with new leads, checking out what your competition is doing and finding out what people are saying about you and your company.

Twitter is the world’s largest “cocktail” party and like all cocktail parties, there are some rules you need to follow so that you are accepted, become popular, attract the right “followers” and ultimately convert them into leads.

Below are my top 10 tips for new Twitter users (Top 10 music kick in now please):


Tip #10 – Provide useful and value added information.
No one really cares if you are drinking coffee now, if your kids just left for school or if you have a headache. Twitter is about providing tips, customer service and useful information that people can use on a daily basis. For example, if you are a photographer, provide daily tips on shooting better photographs. If you are a mechanic, provide daily tips on how to keep your car maintained properly. Providing these tidbits (in under 140 characters of course) that people can walk away with and use daily will keep you and your services in their mind space, and soon, you’ll be able to convert those leads into customers when they need your services.


Tip #9 – Listen to people first.
Like every cocktail party, if you walk up to someone and immediately tell them everything about yourself and what you sell, they will be turned off. In the Twitterverse, this is exactly the same. Don’t jump in and start “selling”. Listen to what people in your industry are doing and what they are looking for. Then jump in and provide useful information, but only if it adds value (see the tip #10).


Tip #8 – Participate in conversations.
After you’ve listened to people and understand what they like (and not like), jump in and start new conversations and participate in current conversations by adding your expertise. Answer as many questions as possible. Be honest and be passionate about what you offer. The effort you put in now to nurture these relationships will come back to you as business.


Tip #7 – Earn trust
I’ve always been taught that you earn trust, you don’t automatically get it. In Twitter, you have to multiply that by 100. You build trust by providing useful information on a daily basis, by answer questions honestly and without bias, by being transparent, by apologizing in public when you (or your company) did something wrong and by giving kudos to people that do great things (e.g. company partners, great employees, fantastic customers and yes…and even your competition). Once you have the trust of the Twitter community, they will seek out your services.


Tip #6 – Quality over quantity.
It’s not about how many “followers” you have; it’s about having relevant followers following you. What do I mean by “relevant”? That depends on your industry and whom you are targeting. If you are a catering company, maybe you want to attract people that just got engaged or throw a lot of parties. Perhaps you want to attract companies (or people) that you want to partner with (such as wedding photographers and videographers). The key is to have relevant followers. It’s better to have 2000 qualified, focused, relevant followers, then 100,000 generic people you know nothing about and may not be interested in what you offer.


Tip #5 – Seek out people that are “influential”.
As tip #6 stated, finding relevant people is very important, but finding “influential” people that are relevant to your industry is even more important. It’s much better to have 1 or 2 followers that are influential (known in your industry, have many relevant followers themselves) then to have 100 people that ultimately, can’t influence anyone.


Tip #4 – Give it away for free.
Provide as much useful information as you can for free and I promise you it will come back to you in the form of business. Social media is all about sharing and interacting with people. The more you share, the more transparent you are, the more people will want to “follow you”. Soon, you will be the “influential follower” that everyone wants to friend.


Tip #3 – Market indirectly.
Once you’ve earned the trust of the Twitter community, have become an influential person in your industry and have provided enough useful and value added information, you will be able to “indirectly” market to people your services and products in between your informational Tweets.


Tip #2 – Do not SPAM.
There are plenty of spammers on Twitter already. You can easily recognize them. They usually follow hundreds (if not thousands) of people, but only 10 people follow them (and those are usually fake accounts they created). They always link to their site, never offering any useful information. They don’t interact with other users in conversations. It’s always one way. Do not become one of those people. If you follow tips #10 through #3 above, you won’t be a spammer. Don’t start with tip #3 directly.


Tip #1 – Don’t expect to tie a Twitter entry to a Balance Sheet entry.
If you are the type of person that expects an immediate ROI after Tweeting for a week, then Twitter (and in fact, all of social media) is not for you. You will not be able to tie a specific Twitter entry to your balance sheet. It just doesn’t work like that. Twitter is a pre-sales tool that allows you to create relationships and nurture them to the point where you can convert some of those relationships into customers.


I hope this article has encouraged you to take on the leap on Twitter. Twitter is not only fun (and free) but it’s a great tool that allows you to build relationships with potential new customers, allows you to nurture the relationships of current customers and allows you to see what your competition is up to.


Join the Twittervolution today! If you are interested in learning more about Twitter, you can take one of our free Twitter webinars or you can, of course, follow me at Twitter.com/NewMediaDude for daily tips about new media.

Posted in Social Networking, Twitter - 10 Comments »

20 Wordpress Plugins For Your Real Estate Website

Considering a new website for your real estate company? Or any other industry for that matter. Wordpress is an open source application you should definitely check out. Wordpress was originally designed to be a simple blogging tool but it keeps getting better and better. Hundreds of companies are now using Wordpress as a content management system (CMS) to power their entire Website. Some of the awesome benefits of using Wordpress for your blog or as a CMS are its cost (it’s free), ease of use, SEO friendliness, online community support and all the free plugins that allow you to easily customize and add enhancements to your site.

Whether you are a developer of a private community or specialize in general brokerage, there are plenty of great plugins that can really help your Wordpress Website.

Here is a list of 20 plugins we install on many of the sites we design for clients. Try them out and let me know if you have any questions about any of them.

Search Engine Optimization and Tracking Plugins:

1.  Google Analytics for Wordpress
This plugin allows you to easily add Google Analytics to your entire Wordpress site for tracking purposes.

2.  Easy Verification
Verify your site with webmaster tools and Yahoo! SiteExplorer.

3.  All-in-One SEO Pack
Great Search Engine Optimization plugin.

4.  Google Sitemap
This is another plugin that helps with search engine optimization. This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO!

Website Utility Plugins:

5.  Database Backup
Hopefully you won’t ever need to use this, but stuff happens. Always nice to have a backup when you need it.

6.  Maintenance Mode
Adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators get full access to the blog including the front-end.

Page Management Plugins:

7.  pageMash
Manage your multitude of pages with pageMash’s slick drag-and-drop style, ajax interface. Allows quick sorting, hiding and organizing of parenting.

8.  Exclude Pages
Sometimes you need a page but you don’t want it to show up in your main navigation menu. For example a landing page for an eblast, or a “hidden” floor plan page.  This plugin gives you a check box option to exclude the page from your menu.

9.  Page Links To
Allows you to point WordPress pages or posts to a URL of your choosing. Good for setting up navigational links to non-WP sections of your site or to off-site resources.

10.  Widget Locationizer
Wordpress allows you to specify what widgets you want on your site, but it places those widgets on every page. With Widget locationizer, you can specify which pages your widgets are displayed. This opens up all kinds of options to get creative with your sidebar content and makes your site look much more interesting and less like a blog.

11.  Section Widget
Lets you display section-specific content on the pages of your choice. This plugin is similar to Widget Locationizer, but has a few different perks of its own.

12.  Simple Sidebar Navigation
This is a really handy tool to create and manage sidebar menus. Simple Sidebar allows you to add any combination of page links in your sidebar. This makes your site really user friendly and allows you to strategically place related links in the sidebar. When used in combo with Widget Locationizer the options are endless.

Content Management Plugins:

13.  Great Real Estate
Allows easy management of your real estate listings.

14.  Tiny MCE Advanced
This plugin adds a toolbar with more styling options for the text in your pages and posts. Warning(disclaimer)…don’t use a huge Comic Sans headline to highlight your latest offer. In most cases, your theme should have built in styling options that will match the rest of your site. But there are times where a few more options are needed and this plugin does the trick.

15.  Contact Form 7 or cformsII
Every real estate site should have a contact form. Maybe several.  We recommend a “Soft Submit” (email, name & zip), “Full Submit” and in some cases, a different form for “Request a Tour.” Either of these plugins will allow you to serve up multiple forms on different pages. Form Submittals are sent to a specified email address instantly. Check out Jami Mullikin’s article on database management.

16.  NextGen Photo Gallery
There are dozens of great photo gallery plugins for Wordpress. NextGen is one of the most popular and a great choice. NextGen stores the photos on your site and allows you to make galleries, albums and slideshows.

17.  Dynamic Headers
This plugin allows a custom header image to be displayed on each page.

Sharing and Social Networking Plugins:

18.  Sociable
Allows visitors to automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to their social networking sites.

19.  Twitter For Wordpress
Displays your public Twitter messages for all to read.

20.  Social Homes
Adds a sidebar widget containing a subtle list of all your social homes as linked favicons so your visitors can follow you.

Share and Enjoy:
  • del.icio.us

  • Twitter

  • Facebook

  • StumbleUpon

  • Digg

  • email

  • LinkedIn

S. Fla. hotel occupancy, rates continue freefall - South Florida Business Journal:

Hotel occupancy and rates fell again last week, according to data from

Smith Travel Research.

For the week ended Nov. 14, average daily room rates in Palm Beach County fell 16.1 percent, to $109.70 from $130.77 at the same time last year. Miami-Dade rates fell 14.5 percent, to $130.85 from $146.31. Rates in Broward fell 13.2 percent, to $98.98 from $114.01.

Average rates across the U.S. were down 9.9 percent, to $95.86 from $106.45 in the prior-year period.

Occupancy in Miami-Dade fell to 71.9 percent from 78.9 percent. Palm Beach County occupancy fell to 62.7 percent from 67.4 percent. Occupancy in Broward fell to 67.7 percent from 72.4 percent.

Nationwide, occupancy fell to 52.6 percent from 56.2 percent.

Though the environment remains challenging, things are improving in Broward as we move into winter, said Alfredo Gonzalez, VP of tourism and international business at the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau. For October, occupancy was essentially flat in Broward.

“Hopefully, the next 12 weeks will set us apart from the rest of the Florida market,” he said.

On Wednesday,

Virgin America Airlines debuted at

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where it will offer twice-daily nonstop flights from

San Francisco International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.

The San Francisco flights are expected to bring a “significant” number of gay, lesbian and bisexual travelers, an important demographic for Fort Lauderdale, Gonzalez noted.

And, Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, the largest cruise ship ever built, recently docked at Port Everglades. That’s also good for Broward tourism, he added. Finally, Broward will benefit from the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl being held in Miami this winter, he said.