The Facebook IPO and FlareTag Applications for Real Estate

FlareTag for Facebook Applications
FlareTag for Facebook Applications

FlareTag for Facebook Applications

Marguerite Reardon’s article title “How can I get a piece of the Facebook action?” answers a question presented to her from one of her readers.  Like Marguerite I will state that I’m not a “financial analyst,” with extensive knowledge about IPO history, laws, and SEC regulations.  My personal experience during the dot-com boom allowed myself and friends the opportunity to invest (and lose) on IPO offerings during a period in the late 1990s.  IPOs for  .com technology companies seemed to be  flooding the market with multiple companies going public every week.  It was gambling, and in the end I heard many stories about people losing on their IPO wagers.

As Marguerite mentions, companies such as google have performed and grown well beyond their initial price offering.  It would seem reasonable to expect that many months from now, when Facebook does IPO it is positioned to experience a burst in demand that will surpass the expectations of the mightiest bulls.  My instinct is that there will be a significant increase in new users that are hungry to experience the social web.  With an ever increasing demand for all things social, mobile, and internet related Facebook is positioned to accelerate and continue redefining social interaction across the globe.

For many years, I personally avoided the social web- Facebook, twitter, etc., because of my privacy concerns.  Unfortunately, our anonymity is an endangered species or an extinct thing of the past and unless you are ready to live the life of Grizzly Adams it maybe the time to embrace and leverage this “Facebook” experience with a renewed gusto.  My personal opinion is that while we practice and work to remain https:// secure and anonymous our government, financial institutions, and economy at large has  built our future in “clouds.”  The network known as the internet has proven itself to be insecure and a detriment to our privacy and a contention point for future economic disaster and instability.  The addendum’s to Facebook’s IPO describe the potential risks, but similar to the fine print people rarely read or consider it until it negatively effects them.

If you believe that Facebook and the social, mobile internet will continue to grow and explode in popularity and want to find a way to profit from the Facebook IPO I suggest you embrace the technology.  My personal strategy was to partner with FlareTag.com to help develop and promote Facebook applications for Real Estate.  The ripple effect of Facebook’s popularity and influence among your customer’s should not be underestimated.  That is not to say that twitter, LinkedIn, google+, and an ever-growing number of social network sites are less important than Facebook- simply put you can not ignore the global social influence of the internet to deliver you opportunities to establish, improve, and maintain your brand.

At FlareTag we are developing Facebook applications for the social and mobile internet gold rush.   Get in touch with me. I value a private a conversation about your real estate business knowledge and needs. I’m willing to listen, learn, and share ideas that will help you benefit from the Facebook IPO in 2012.

 

 

 

Attending Foreclosure & County Auction Trustee Sales

County Courthouse Steps
County Courthouse Steps

County Courthouse Steps

The county official in charge of  the scheduled auction stood at the top of the courthouse steps.  The crowd of one included just my father, who was the only one that attended the  trustee sale auction recently conducted at the courthouse steps in my hometown.  There were no bidding wars on the courthouse steps on that day.  The absence of competition peaked my interests in researching the trustee sales process and inventory.

Trustee sale auctions are periodically conducted at your County’s court house steps.  Future trustee sales must be advertised and announced in one local news publications twenty days prior to the sale- so check your local business newspaper.  Real property that is foreclosed and auctioned to the highest cash bidder at the courthouse steps can sell for significantly less then it’s market value.

Finding what should be free obtainable public data online can be a challenge at times with numerous websites that are purely online marketing sites intended to gain revenue by capturing the clicks of users or building a database of email accounts for marketing purposes.  I’ve attempted to aid in your search, or at the very least share with you some of the sites I found informative when looking for trustee sale events.  Bid4Assets.com, Auction.com, and Realtytrac.com are some of the most popular sites used to find trustee sales online.  RealtyTrac.com is a paid service or subscription based website that lists properties scheduled for auction as well as those properties that have been issued a notice of default (NOD).  A free site affiliated with Bank of America is ReconTrust.com. I think that this is actually an interesting site and worth reviewing and knowing about.

Purchasing real property at a trustee sale has several requirements that inherently reduce the number of bidders and competition.  For instance,  buyer’s are not typically permitted to inspect the real property that is being sold at auction.  Winning bidders are required to tender an immediate cash or cashier’s check payment when the auction ends.  While a foreclosure and the trustee sale wipes out junior loans against the title to property,  government owed back taxes remain the responsibility of the winning bidder and requires payment to posses clear title to the real property purchased.  Bidders must conduct thorough title research with the county recorder’s office or title company to ensure that their will be no additional costs of outstanding property taxes.

Get in touch- and tell me anything you can about  your County Courthouse Step experience!  Register to gain access to my private research on the subject of flipping, buying primary residences, and investment real estate in California.