Written by:  Nathan Thomas

Meet Nathan Gilliam, president/broker of Palm Coast, Fla.-based Resident Real Estate Network. Gilliam is the lucky winner of a brand new 2006 Porsche Boxer convertible … even though it took some work convincing him he'd really won the giveaway.   Read more...

As a mortgage broker, you're constantly trying to get into the heads of your prospects to learn what will prompt them to contact you instead of your competition. However, as Julie Ryan, a real estate marketing expert based in Australia, explained, there are several common mistakes made in the process.   Read more...

As you know, your XSite comes with more than 75 (20 for XSites Standard level) professionally-written content pages. You can edit them as needed to make them more personal or more geared towards your market. But you may also want to write your own content pages from time to time. But writing content for the web is different than writing an essay for English class. Web surfers rarely read web pages word by word; rather, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences that appeal to them.   Read more...

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. -- a la mode, a leading developer of desktop, mobile and web tools for real estate professionals, has announced Nathan Gilliam of Palm Coast, Fla. as the winner of the company's Porsche Boxster convertible giveaway at the National Association of REALTORS® 2005 Conference and Expo.   Read more...

A lot of bandwidth and I.Q. points have been spent debating the new Appraiser's Certification items in the new URAR Fannie Mae is requiring (in most cases) beginning this month. Specifically, two provisions have aroused interest from appraisers concerned about their rights and liabilities and data companies hoping to get ahold of appraisers' data. They are:   Read more...

Tim Vining, a commercial/agricultural appraiser from eastern Washington state, won a historical victory in court last month. Since we at a la mode began telling you that your work product, including your appraisal reports, is your intellectual property, we've (and you've) heard all sorts of arguments why you can't copyright your work. We -- and intellectual property experts, and attorneys for the U.S. Copyright Office -- say you own your work and grant your clients a limited license to use it for a particular purpose. Your delivering a report to your client does not give that client the blanket right to use the report and the data therein for whatever purpose they decide is best.   Read more...

"That's it - just one annual fee? There are no monthly fees?"   Read more...

"Every year, more money is spent on advertising research than medical research."   Read more...

Most mortgage brokers know that marketing to their past clients is one of the best ways to generate repeat and referral clients, but few actually do it because they spend most of their time and money prospecting new clients. It's easy to market to past clients as long as you give them something of value. If you give them something they can use, they'll be more likely to refer you to their friends and family or contact you when they're ready to refinance or get a new mortgage. Here are a few marketing tactics that add value:   Read more...

As you may know, plans are underway to provide you with another tool to generate more leads to your Mortgage XSite website. Last week at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Convention & Expo, we announced plans to integrate LoanBright's Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising and mortgage lead generation services, allowing mortgage brokers like you to drive more targeted consumer traffic to your XSite.   Read more...