Now - we have a new medium - SOCIAL MEDIA - which includes Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, RSS feeds..., and collectively you can REDUCE YOUR AD SPEND, devise MORE EFFECTIVE MARKETING, CONNECT with CLIENTS, IMPROVE your PUBLIC IMAGE and PROFILE, retain and motivate STAFF and have some FUN along the way.

Interested?!!! Download our recent presentation on the power of Social Media for real estate marketing - these ideas are all FREE, take just a few minutes to deploy.

Suspend your disbelief - with MORE people OVER 40 on Facebook in Perth than UNDER 18, it is not something for kids. It's something that business can use (if used correctly). Same goes for Twitter.

Other Facebook facts: 400,000 people in Perth & WA are on Facebook, and regularly check and update their pages and read others; ads on Facebook can be TARGETTED to reach specific age groups, genders and neighbouroods.

Other resources:

Peter Fletcher's blog - The Real Estate Marketing Maven

David Lynch - Article on using Social Media in a Recession

Already it's had 1000 views on LocoTV, making it the most popular show there last week. Episode 2 will be out shortly.

In episode 1, we look at internet search, talk with Chris Hutchison (ACTON Dalkeith), John and Jane Inverarity on their Claremont development, take a look at Shenton Park and Phil Knight discusses 'Things I wish I knew at 20'.

 We need human interest stories on people buying, selling, renting, investing... always interested in hearing from our clients, as we want to involve YOU in this show!

As you're no doubt aware, interest rates were kept on hold at 3.25%, after 6 successive cuts (and 4% cut in total) since mid last year.

There's much debate in today's paper and online blogs about the RBA's inaction. Economists might tell you that interest rate changes have large sweeping effects throughout the economy, and for many months to come, so we suspect the RBA is leaving things on hold as what they do today will continue to have effects 6-18 months down the line - and who knows what is going to be required then?

Remember up to 12 months ago, the RBA was worried about inflation and were raising interest rates - that seems a long time ago.

Meanwhile, the latest suburb trend data from REIWA shows further price falls in the Perth market - with 171 out of Perth's 279 suburbs (63%) experiencing price falls in December quarter and 88 having price rises over the period (33%). The Perth median took a dive to (on our figures, a median of those 279) $476,500 or 4%. Activity also fell - in the year to Dec 08 there were 20,742 sales (6.3% less than the year to Sep 08).

But this is historical data - and you wouldn't drive a car looking through the mirror; already we're seeing more activity in the sub$500k market, and even $500-$700k market, and with correct pricing above this, activity is there and astute buyers are out there -

Are newspapers dead - or as good as? This has been the debate over the past few months, and adding more fuel to the fire were lead stories in The Australian last month, Time magazine, and the recent demise of the Rocky Mountain News (1859-2009), Chicago Tribune and Philadephia newspapers. Even the Miami Herald is up for sale. Nearer to home, we've seen what has happened to News Ltd, Fairfax and West Australian shares.

The Rocky Mountain News was 150 years old and Colorado's oldest paper, and in that time survived a flood that swept away its building (in 1859) and yet it won 4 Pulitzer Prizes in the past decade. The shift of ad dollars to the Net was the last straw.

The Internet has been blamed for lots of things - and in our lead article, we wax lyrical about the power of 'social media'. It's not enough to just to use it (but you MUST use it) - it has to be used right. We're still at the start of this thing.